No Words Left
by Queen of the Red Skittle
Summary: After a freak accident Pitch gets stuck in Jack's head. Neither are prepared for the consequences.
1. i

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

**A.N: **Written to post-rock ambience, such as the bands _The Calm Blue Sea,_ _This Will Destroy You, _and "Moya" from _Godspeed You! Black Emperor. _

**A.N#2: **This is a Jack-Pitch centric story. No slash.

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"The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness."

–Joseph Conrad, _Heart of Darkness _

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No Words Left

.

"_Jack, watch out!_"

The young Guardian crouched in midair to avoid a powerful blast of corrupted dreamsand. It sailed close enough to shave the tips of his bangs, enough so he could pick out his own distorted reflection in the grainy depths. Despite narrowly avoiding decapitation Jack laughed, his whoops of merriment a stark contrast to the storm clouds all around them. Rain slapped his face and soaked his hoodie, but neither discomfort diminished his maniacal grin.

Electricity sang in his blood as he shouted, "Thanks, Tooth!" Then, louder, he said, "Hear that, Pitch? You missed!"

The storm winds stole the Nightmare King's snarled response. Another attack rushed at him, but Jack evaded it with a careless somersault. Without looking he shot a blast of snow, pulverizing the Nightmare galloping towards him. Jack watched the frozen chunks pound the unsuspecting fearlings below.

"Snowflake! Quit showboatin!" Bunnymund hollered, but the wind also robbed him of his power. His complaints were tiny under the violence of the storm, and Jack ignored them. Having Pitch pressed against the metaphorical wall filled him with a heady thrill he'd seldom experienced, and he wasn't about to let the giant kangaroo ruin it. Though nowhere as powerful as he'd been a year ago, Pitch had gathered strength, regaining control of his Nightmares by twisting children's dreams into hellscapes. When the Guardians learned Pitch had been skulking around Jamie and his friends on a revenge quest, it was clear he had to be stopped. Again. Perhaps more permanently than last time, or at least, under better supervision. Or a leash. Wrangling a greased snake would've been easier than pinning the shadow down, but there were only so many places Pitch could run. Like a wolf sensing the farmer's gun Pitch fought like a demon, his newborn Nightmares squealing their master's rage. Sheets of jagged lightening lashed over their heads, deafening _CRRAAACKKs _roaring across the sky. Shadows were thrown into sharp relief. The downpour was torrential, but did little to stem Pitch's violence. He was fighting to kill, and like a cornered dog, had nothing left to lose.

Sling-shooting off the back of North's reindeer, Jack launched an attack at the Nightmare King, hurling bolt after bolt of ice. Pitch flickered in and out like a mirage, re-materializing with a magician's slight of hand. Not even Sandy's whips could landed a blow. Pitch seemed mocking as he directed the brunt of his fury at Jack, sending a cascade of sand so thick North had to bank the sleigh suddenly to avoid being riven in two. Bunnymund was nearly sent flying. The resounding argument between the two—_"You did that on purpose!" "I did not! I am good driver!" "Like my left foot you are!"—_was loud enough to rival the thunder.

_He dodges everything I throw, _the immortal teenager thought. _I need to get closer. _

The sky transformed into incandescent purple as lightening _CRACK_ed again, reeking of ozone. Jack's neck hairs prickled to the point of discomfort. Bunnymund looked like a pincushion when he and North flew past, fur standing on end, eyes equally bugged. Jack laughed again in wild abandon. The lightening boomed again, banishing every shadow like a camera's flash. For a split instant Pitch stood as clear as ink on bright paper, gaunt and sleek, hands balled into fists. He appeared as he did the night he killed Sandy, murder and elegance rolled into one. He was a monster of the old world, a relic of an ancient age, and an odd shiver of forgotten trepidation lanced through the young Guardian, one he wouldn't admit to anyone for a million years. For all their strength, the Guardians would never possess the same allure and violence the Nightmare King exuded.

The darkness returned and Pitch was obscured once more, hidden save for the two burning metal eyes. Jack quickly shoved the old awe aside, cheeks heating. He'd come a long way since Antarctica, and Pitch was fighting a losing battle. There was nothing left the dark spirit could do to him.

"You're going down, Pitch!" Jack shouted. Though the Boogeyman didn't reply, he appeared to gloat anyway, egging the immortal teenager with his unflappable demeanor. _Let's see you try, _he seemed to say, seemed to _sneer_, and for a moment Jack saw red. Every hurt, every assault—from the breaking of his staff in Antarctica, to the Easter debacle, to the recent attacks on Jamie's dreams—rose in his mind like a clamor, refusing to be ignored. He could hear the others behind him—Bunnymund was shouting something—North too, and Tooth, but lightening cracked again and the rain drowned them out. He was alone. _Don't worry guys, I got this, _Jack thought as he shot forward to Pitch's makeshift cloud. Pitch appeared to steel himself for the clash, eyes narrowing into slits as he bent into a fighter's crouch. The tumultuous darkness, heavy as lead and soaking, made it difficult to pinpoint the dark spirit's exact location, but Jack widened his grip on the staff in preparation for a wide-scaled attack.

Nightmares were coalescing all around him, peeling their eerie violin cries, baleful orange eyes flaring. None of it mattered. He could feel Pitch reaching for him, dreamsand arrow pulled back to his gray cheek, just as lighteni—

.

.s.

.

_jack! jack! guys, i think he moved! come quick! c'mon snowflake, open your eyes._

White hot pain sizzled through Jack like bacon grease, skittering and fritzing from eyelid to toe. His limbs were sandbags, impossible to move. The pain went deep, almost as deep as when Pitch snapped his staff in two; something had changed inside him, broken. When he tried to lift a hand to scrub his face, the voices above him exploded.

"Gosh, about time! C'mon girls, alright, give him room."

"_Ah-ha!_ Did I not say he make it?"

"Gerroff, geroff—m'fine." His tongue was a swollen sausage in his mouth, three times bigger and ten times as clumsy. A herd of Nightmares was racing around in his head, their hooves pounding a vicious tempo. Ugh.

"What was that?" Laughter and tangible relief distorted a new speaker's the words. "Couldn't understand you, mate."

"Bunny, don't tease him," North said, but the cheer in his voice removed the bite.

Jack opened his eyes. Shapes were foggy, as if seen from underwater, but he could make out North's red cloak and Sandy's golden glow. Bunny and Tooth blended into each other, blues matching. They were all huddled around him, and when he grunted, eager hands helped him into a sitting position. Tooth's and her small entourage of mini fairies' wingbeats cooled his brow beneath the summer's early morning heat.

"How long wazzi out?" His head was stuffed with nails. Even blinking hurt.

"A good while," Tooth said, her bell-like voice the only balm in his aching world. Her girls chirruped in agreement. "Even Sandy couldn't wake you."

"Huh! No surprise there—he's _supposed_ to make people sleep," Bunnymund said under his breath.

"Wha'ppened?" Ugh. His head wouldn't stop ringing. Details were returning to their proper places. His friends were peering at him, squatting at his height without being patronizing; only Sandy stood tall, beaming at Jack between languid blinks.

"You don't remember?" Tooth asked. She rested a small hand on his shoulder. "Jack, you were struck by lightening."

"Lit up like a Christmas tree," Bunnymund said, examining his claws with studied nonchalance.

"Never seen anything like it!" North said, throwing his arms wide, almost smacking Bunnymund in the face. "For good second, too. You fall to ground before we catch you."

"Whoa—lightening? Really?" Jack asked. If he were mortal he'd be fried toast. A little shiver ran down his spine. "Can lightening do that? Hit a spirit?"

"We are part of physical world too. No reason it couldn't happen," North said, rubbing under his lower lip.

"That's not all," Tooth said, wings _whirr_ing. Her nose wrinkled. "Pitch was hit as well."

"Pitch?" It was getting easier to talk. Even the fiery pins-and-needles were ebbing to a dull, prickling discomfort. The world had lost its underwater fog and now he could pick out strand of fur on Bunnymund's coat. Jack looked around. It was morning, early enough for the sky to be a pale greenish yellow in the east. The meadow they'd landed in lush and vibrant, still soaked from last night's deluge. Despite the hour a balmy breeze came in, promising to deliver the heat wave the weatherman had been ranting about. It burgeoned with the scents of pine resin and damp grass. A pair of bluebottles hummed past, searching for clover. There was nothing to indicate anything amiss, and Jack would've missed it, had it not been for the dark stain amidst all the blue. It looked like a sodden log, unmoving.

Jack snapped his head at the others, wincing at the sloshing pain the whiplash movement brought. "No way."

"Yep. Just like you. Completely knocked out," Bunnymund said, whiskers bristling. "Don't know bout you lot, but I'd like to keep it that way."

"He out like light. But to be honest, you were priority," North said, gracing Jack with one of his signature beams.

Jack in turn couldn't help but smile back. An inexplicable boom of warmth spread across his chest, one that had nothing to do with the lightening. He was once again reminded this wasn't a dream. This was real. He was part of a family now, part of friends who cared what happened to him. Trusted. Cherished. It was strange to think how a year ago he was nothing but an outsider looking in, friendless and isolated. His goofy grin fell away and at last made to his feet. He was handed his staff and he gripped it tight, using it as a crutch as he wobbled in place. He tested out his magic, an unknown weight plunging off his chest as he created a snowball. Well, it came out mostly ice, too dangerous to throw, but he chalked it up as a success anyway. He let it drop to the ground.

"Alright, let's check the creep out."

If Jack hadn't known better, he would've thought Pitch asleep. They all circled around. The young Guardian shifted his weight and scratched the back of his neck. He almost didn't recognize Pitch without the cruel sneer. The dark gray face was slack with unconsciousness, almost peaceful as he lay prone in the dewy grass. His chest never rose or fell, but that meant nothing for a spirit. He was bigger up close than Jack remembered, stretched out like a deranged cat soaking up sunshine. Jack shifted again. He cleared his throat.

"Is he . . .?"

"Dead? Nope." Bunnymund leaned over Pitch. "Just waaaaaay out of it." He cocked his paw back and walloped the Boogeyman a resounding slap. Instead of sputtering awake, as Jack fully expected, the gaunt shadow never stirred. Neither did he reposition his head to get comfortable, but kept it twisted in the grass. The angle of the neck looked uncomfortable, and Jack fought the urge to reposition Pitch's head. It was one thing fighting an able enemy, but taking a five-on-one advantage on an unconscious one was unfair. Too unfair. To his relief Bunnymund stepped away from Pitch and made a show of wiping his paw on North's shoulder. North grimaced and almost shoved him into Sandy, who stuck his tongue out and floated out of range.

"But how could we tell? If he was, uh, you know." Jack didn't know how to finish. Even after everything that had happened, Jack didn't hate Pitch. Unlike the others, he hadn't fought him since the Dark Ages. Sure, he was a jerk. Yeah, he'd almost destroyed the Guardians a year ago, and would again given half the chance. But Jack had seen Pitch's vulnerability in Antarctica, and the abject horror when he'd failed to make the kids see him. He and Pitch _had _suffered under the same lash, and though Jack stood with the others over the prone body, he felt no joy.

"He'd fade and disappear completely," Tooth said. Her feathers caught the sunrise and gleamed like tiny green fires. There was no pity in her voice. "If he was really dying."

Bunnymund snorted. "Not not gonna happen, of course. Our luck isn't that good."

Question marks cropped with increasing speed over Sandy's head. The giant rabbit caught sight of them and _harumph_ed. "Sandy's right. The real question is what should we do with him now."

"I say we leave him there. That should be fine," Jack said with studied ease.

"And let him get away? You've all seen him fight: he's getting strong again," Bunnymund said, whiskers ruffling. "There's no telling what this oily bird's cooking next."

"You afraid of a little shadow? C'mon, it'll be fine. If he tries anything we stop him," Jack said, rubbing his forehead. Out of all the pains the lightening caused him, the headache had yet to dissipate. The Nightmares were no longer galloping inside his brain but fighting each other, bucking and pressing against his skull. It felt his head had expanded three times its size. All he wanted to do was shove his whole head in a snowbank and leave it there. "We've done it before and we can do it again."

"Jack's right," North said, and everyone heard the note of finality. "We are Guardians, not bullies. We leave him alone for now, but if he show his face again—ha! We clock him out proper!"

They'd come to it, then. The threat had been neutralized, and as if by unspoken agreement, they prepared to split ways. Jack disliked this part the most. Three hundred years of being psychologically adrift had ignited an insatiable urge for family. He couldn't get enough. His favorite moments were when they were all together, bantering and playing, each helping the other overcome whatever threat. But those moments were rare. Over the year they'd occasionally run into each other, typically two at a time, rarely three, and never all five at once. Jack mostly saw Sandy. The friendly dream-caster would wave hello, more than happy to allow the winter spirit to tag along on his dream runs. As it was, the young Guardian realized now the Big Four only came together when absolutely necessary. Each had their separate duties in their separate realms, and as much as they enjoyed each other, their collaborations were ephemeral. The tiny shiver, the one he could never fully shake off, the treacherous thought of _This is it, this is where the fantasy ends, _slid down his spine. Which was ridiculous. They would always be there for each other. Jack was safe. Nothing could change his Guardian status now. And so he, too, prepared to move away, albeit reluctantly, until—

Jack spun around, raising his staff. "Whoa! You guys hear that?"

"Hear what?" Bunnymund said, ears cupping. Nothing but cricket song rose in the somnolent air.

"What was it?" North asked.

Tooth flew close to the immortal teenager. "You feeling okay?"

Jack blinked, then straightened. He'd been so sure he'd heard a voice. "No, I . . . it must've been—"

His headache exploded. He had the dim memory of falling to his knees, clutching at his head. He may've screamed as a horror not his own rippled through him. The voice, when it spoke, was undeniably Pitch's, stricken and terrible.

_"What have you done to me?" _

…

_TBC_


	2. ii

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

–George Orwell, _Animal Farm_

_._s.

_ "I demand you return me to my body at once! I will _murder_—"_

Jack had stopped trying to get a word in edgewise half hour ago. He squatted on his haunches, squinting his eyes, one hand clutching his forehead, the other braced against the ground. The others stood around him with identical expressions of worry, at a loss. Not that Jack could've heard them anyway. Pitch was roaring, ranting with a violence reserved for a bloodbath. In over thirty minutes Jack heard threats, pleas, bargains, demands at what was going on, at promises of disastrous retribution. When at last Pitch grew tired, the shrieks subsided to a low hum of exhausted malice. Jack had the mental picture of the Boogeyman slumping against the iron bars of a cage, worn out against his captors. The lull was enough for Jack to come to his senses and hear what the others were saying.

North was first to attempt wrapping his head around it. "So . . . when you say Pitch _inside_, you mean . . ."

"Yeah," Jack said, more than a little dazed. He must've been still out cold from the lightening strike. Yes, that was it. This was nothing but an intensely vivid nightmare. The young Guardian wanted to believe this with all of his heart, but he could _feel _Pitch—the whole of him. It was an alien presence, a coldness, like standing in a damp cellar. The Boogeyman's essence _felt_ uncountably old, old like the ancient tombs below the Great Pyramids, cold and alien and otherworldly. Large, larger than any physical concept, larger than Jack, larger than all the Guardians put together, it pressed against the bone confines of the young Guardian's skull, enormous and looming; suddenly made sense why it felt like a bowling ball was stuffed between his ears. There was curiously no pain, just a disconcerting pressure. "He's talking in my head. He's shut up long enough for me to hear you guys."

Everyone exchanged a look. Sandy scratched his chin.

_"I will end you all for this," _Pitch seethed. He was apoplectic enough to make a cobra's venom look like apple juice.

Jack groaned. "This can't be happening to me."

_"Can't be happening to you? Can't be happening to you! You're not the one non-corporal!" _Pitch snarled. His voice rose an octave in an indignant shriek._"You have something to complain about? I'm the one stuck inside your head—you little—"_

"Hey!" Jack snapped. "This isn't fun-time for me either. This is extremely disturbing for me too, so why don't you take your poor victim act and shove it up your—" He broke off, noticing how everyone was staring at him as if he'd grown a second head. Which, ironically, was the case.

"No offense mate, but you know how crazy y'look?" Bunnymund said. "Crazier than normal, I mean."

"Yeah? Well, I feel crazy. I have the Boogeyman in my head," Jack replied. This was shaping up to be a horrible, horrible day, and the morning wasn't even half over. Crickets were beginning to chirrup all around them in response to the rising heat. The sky above them was paling, turning golden with the sunrise. "Please tell me you guys have heard about this before."

"No," North said, wide-eyed. "Never!"  
Jack flashed a tight _Of course you haven't _smile. He grimaced and directed the question at his passenger. "You?"

Pitch's silent fuming was answer enough.

The only good thing about the whole situation was the headache was gone. Aside from the weird pressure between his ears and eyes, he could pretend everything was normal.

_"It's far from normal, you lackwit," _Pitch said. He sounded like he was cradling his own head between his hands._"How can any of this be normal?"_

Jack's stomach dropped again as his worst fears were confirmed. This was beyond great. Utterly wonderful. He wanted to die. "Wait. You—you can hear my thoughts? No, not you, Bunny. I'm talking to Pitch."

Bunnymund's expression was appropriate for one visiting a nuthouse. Tooth and Sandy shared a heavy look. Tooth's mini fairies chuttered quietly amongst themselves, throwing Jack worried glances. North stroked his beard, tapping one of his swords on a shoulder. Jack could almost hear the wheels turning in the burly Guardian's head, chugging like a runaway train.

_"Of course I can," _Pitch replied, no longer shouting, but voice still as friendly as a wasp's sting. _"Never had I heard anything so insane in my entire existence. 'Normal.' You utter _child_."_

"Oh, well, glad you've at least heard something."

Pitch coiled on himself like a snake about to strike, puffing up.

"Just because we don't know answer now doesn't mean we can't find one," North said quickly, reading Jack's despair.

Tooth clapped her hands. "Of course! Maybe we just need to recreate the situation."

Jack shot her a narrow look. "Hold on, Tooth. You're saying I need to get hit by lightening? Again?"

"The both of you do," North said with a little _ah-HA!_ "At same time. That is only explanation."

"_Leave it to a bunch of half-wits to explain a complex transcorporal phenomenon with ridiculous simplicity." _

Again, the others passed a look of sympathy around at Jack's clear inward annoyance.

"Pitch has something to add?" North asked drily.

"Could you tell?" Jack said, pinching the bridge of his nose and squinting. "He's just Mr. Sunshine right now."

"Ha! Now that'd be something to see, eh?"

"Don't stir him up," the young Guardian said. Ever since waking in the field, Pitch wasn't the only one on edge. Jack felt trapped, his every thought and gesture scrutinized and ridiculed. He sensed the Boogeyman's presence in his mind like a malignant cancer, always there, waiting, watching. He felt dirty. What he wouldn't give to scrub himself clean.

_ "I demand to see my body."_

"Alright, alright. Sheesh, hold your horses," Jack groused, but did what he was bid, if only to shut the Nightmare King up. He could feel Pitch calculating everything now, cold and alert. The control felt even more dangerous than the previous rage, and as Jack walked to where the body lay in the grass, he understood it unwise to provoke the Boogeyman further. He had almost destroyed—_destroyed—_the Guardians a year ago; what could he do to Jack now inside him? _I have a bomb strapped to my head, _Jack thought before remembering his passenger could hear every word. Luckily, Pitch was too preoccupied to notice. He was deathly quiet as the young Guardian stood over his body. Unlike the his friends, whose moods were easy to interpret, Pitch was something else. Alien emotions flitted past Jack, too shrouded and complex to pick out. It was like trying to comprehend how the colour black smelled; Jack had no language for it.

_ "You done?" _

A flush of embarrassment shot through the immortal teenager. "Oh. Sorry."

_"Quit while you're ahead, Frost. You can't even begin to understand me."_

The others gathered around. Sandy nudged a black shoulder with a little foot, unaware of the hatred Pitch shot him.

North _mmmm_'d loudly. "Okay. Where we put him? The Pole?"

_ "Don't touch it." _

Jack gave a little disbelieving laugh. "C'mon, Pitch, be reasonable. We have to move you—it—somewhere."

_"Don't let them touch my body,"_ Pitch said.

Jack was in hell. He'd died and was in hell. "Pitch—"

_"—manhandling with their dirty paws—"_

"We can't just lea—"

_"—slobbering idiots—"_

"Pitch, wait. Stop—"

_"—probably destroy it first chance they get—"_

"PITCH!" Jack roared. For a blissful second there was silence. The young Guardian hurried to say: "If we're both going to endure this, we need to work together."

"Seriously, mate. Creepy."

"I can't help it!" Jack said, rounding on Bunnymund. "What am I supposed to do?"

"I dunno; d'you have to talk out loud? Answer him in your head," the giant rabbit replied.

_ "How do I know this isn't one of your ploys to get rid of me?" _Pitch asked. He sounded like he was pacing up and down Jack's skull. Which was impossible. He didn't have a physical body to pace, and yet it was clear Pitch was somehow moving around.

"I'm in—" Jack stopped, took a breath, and tried again. _I'm in the same boat as you, Pitch. Why would they sacrifice me just to get to you?_

_ "Maybe it's because you're expendable to them." _It was disconcerting to have no physical guide for Pitch's voice. His words came from everywhere and nowhere, despite the sleeping form in front of him. Jack could see it now: the Boogeyman's face lacked a spark, the once charcoal glow a corpse gray. It was nothing but a hollow shell, the aspect that had given it life and fire absent. Jack realize then he was seeing what Pitch would look like if he were truly dead.

_ "Didn't you retain anything they said?" _Pitch said, withering._ "If I were dying, my body would be fading." _

"Would you—" Jack gritted his teeth. He lifted a finger to the others in the universal 'One minute, please' and turned around for some privacy. _Would you stop that?_

_ "I would love to, believe me,"_ Pitch said. He was pacing again, spinning on a metaphorical heel in a quick snap. _"It's not my fault you think in such quibbling circles."_

_Well, stop it. I don't need your commentary every time I think_.

_ "Oh, you're making the rules now?"_

_ My body, my rules, _Jack thought-said.

_"Or what, _Jack_?" _Pitch said. The razored emphasis could cut steel._"What will you do to silence me?"_

_ Let's just try to get though this without making this worse, _Jack thought-said. _Or there won't be a body for you to transfer into._

There was a gratifying moment of scandalized shock. Then: _"You wouldn't." _

_ I don't think you're in much of a position to be making any threats, Pitch. If I were you, I'd shut up and behave yourself, _Jack thought-said. _Look in my mind. Know I'm not kidding. _

Pitch did, and not gently. The young Guardian could feel the dark spirit upending his mind like someone rifling through file cabinets with a pickax. Jack squinted against the prickling discomfort and concentrated on his darker fantasies, the ones fueled whenever Jamie was in danger. Pitch apparently found them because the searching went still. For a long moment Pitch was unmoving, an indecipherable miasma of indecipherable emotions. Then the claws retreated, and silence returned. Jack let out a sigh of relief and turned back to the others.

"How is passenger?" North asked, nodding to the question mark that had popped like bubbles over Sandy's head.

"Quiet," Jack said easily. "We've come to an agreement."

Bunnymund chuffed. "Oh-hoh? I'd like to see that."

"I'm sure you would," Jack said, a smile that was too sharp to be entirely friendly on his face. "Why don't _you_ get hit by lightening next time?"

"Mmmmm, ehhh, I think I'll pass," Bunnymund said, picking at some nonexistent paint specks on a boomerang. "'Crazy' is a fetching look on you, mate."

"Yes, yes, yes, yes. Very good," North said, moving to clasp both Jack and Bunnymund around their shoulders. Jack ducked under Naughty's heavy weight, feeling too confined already. Bunnymund looked like he wanted to do the same, face sour, but North tightened his grip, disabling flight. "But that doesn't answer big question. What we do with body?"

"'What we do with body'—you realize how wrong that sounds, right?" the giant rabbit said, giving the other a squinty side-eye, leaning to escape North's embrace.

"I think we should just keep it here til the next lightening storm," Tooth said.

"Can't we just travel to find lightening?" Jack asked. "I hear it's going crazy in Indiana."

"No. If we're going to replicate the conditions exactly, we need to do it here," she said. "It's the only way to eliminate all the variables."

"Jamie went on about how it's supposed to be nice for the week straight," the immortal teenager said, groaning. "What am I gonna do?"

"Just hold on," she said, flying close to rest a small hand on his shoulder again. Unlike North's massive slab of an arm, the delicate weight of her touch sent soothing waves through him. Her warmth permeated through the layers of his hoodie. "We'll fix this, we promise."

"We'll speak to Man in Moon. Maybe he'll have answers," North said, crowding in, dragging Bunnymund with him.

A ripple of distaste coursed through Jack, though he was unsure whether it came from Pitch or himself. Though he was a Guardian now and the happiest he'd been in living memory, there was no love lost between him and the Moon. As far as he was concerned, the Moon was never there for him when he needed him most. No reason for that suddenly change. If Pitch was aware of Jack's internal thoughts, he made no mention of it.

"So, what does the jerk have to say about this?" Tooth asked.

"Oh, he's totally fine with it. Can't stop saying enough nice things about you guys."

A collective wince ran though them. Sandy pulled a sympathetic face.

"Buck up, Snowflake. In a week's time you'll be normal. Normal crazy."

"Yeah. I'd better," Jack grumbled under his breath, but tried to make a show of nonchalance. The last thing he wanted was to appear weak and whiny in front of his friends, and though the situation wasn't a good one, Jack figured it could've been much, much worse.

After all, he could've ended in Pitch's head instead.

.

.s.

.

North lifted the unresisting body in a fireman's carry, puffing a little under its weight. It was disturbing to see the usually animate figure utterly unresponsive despite the jostling it received. After another brief caucus, it was decided to move the body away from the open to some nearby rock caves. Jack led the way, swishing his staff in the long grass. Jamie had shown the young Guardian miniature caverns at the forest's edge during one of their adventures several weeks ago. They were the result of misfitting granite boulders laying atop each other, the holes they provided large enough for children and lean teenagers to slip in without much difficulty. Adults would've found climbing in a squeeze, thus the reason Jack and Sandy were the ones who pulled the Boogeyman in. In contrast to the restrictive opening, the cavern's chamber was large enough to admit Pitch, Sandy, and Jack with minimal cramping. Jack had to remain slightly bent while Sandy moved around without hassle. They deposited the body on the damp, chilled ground. Jack winced on the Nightmare King's benefit when Sandy accidentally dropped Pitch's head on a rock. Pitch himself said nothing. He remained a cold, unapproachable presence in Jack's head, quietly cataloging the wrongs done to him.

When he and Sandy emerged from the tiny cave, it was Tooth who said:

"Jack, we think it's best you should stay behind."

Jack stared at her, aghast. "What? No way!"

"We still don't know the effects being away from the body might do to Pitch. We don't even know the effects having Pitch in your head will do to _you. _We don't know anything, really. Gosh, I know we're being really unhelpful. We'll will come by every day to check up on you." She finished with the words he couldn't resist, even if he'd tried. "Trust us, Jack."

The young Guardian folded like a house of cards, defenseless against the gentle warfare. The few protests he lobbed were hollow, and they knew it. _Trust us. _Let his friends help him. They would take care of him. He was family now, remember? _Trust us. _A few more goodbyes passed between them before they moved off in their separate ways, Bunnymund leaping down his tunnel and Sandy on his airplane. Tooth and North took a little longer, promising to come back tonight. North gave Jack a snow globe to use for an emergency—"It will take you directly to Pole. Just throw and poof! walk through,"—before leaving themselves via North's sleigh. Jack watched them leave, trying to hide the despondent looks he threw at them.

Then, like that, Jack was alone. _Great. Just great,_ he thought.

Pitch maintained his mulish silence, but that was a carrion comfort.

…

_TBC_


	3. iii

"This is not the scene I dreamed of. Like much else nowadays I leave it feeling stupid, like a man who lost his way long ago but presses on along a road that may lead nowhere."

–J. M. Coetzee,_ Waiting for the Barbarians _

_._s.

The sun beat down outside, the temperature steadily rising as the morning progressed. The humidity developed into a heavy, sticky blanket as the cicadas sang their piercing whistles. Grasshoppers droned. July did little to lift Jack's spirits; it was too hot, too contrary to his nature. Jamie hadn't lied: this week was supposed to be a scorcher. Ninety degree, one-hundred-percent-humidity let's-kill-ourselves scorcher. The coolness of the small cavern kept the worst of the heat at bay, but it still wasn't enough to completely remove the oppressive weight. It seemed to infect his blood, igniting a restlessness that grew by the hour. Pitch was quiet. He hadn't said a thing since Jack had threatened bodily harm. The immortal teenager surreptitiously glanced at the still figure. In the cramped quarters of the cave Pitch's body appeared huge, stretched out in oblivion, the matte robes blending in with the dimness. It was eerie to be in such proximity with it, and it certainly didn't help that the body looked moments away from waking up.

The strange and uncomfortable notion of having another consciousness piggybacking his head wasn't too terrible, actually. To Jack's delighted surprise the Nightmare King could remain remarkable still, and for long periods of time he actually forgot the Boogeyman was in his head. He'd expected the dark spirit to rant and rave, but it seemed Pitch was content to—

_"Will you stop that?" _the voice said, low and dangerous._ "Leave me alone."_

"Jeeze, what's choking your goose?"

A black wave of anger flooded over him, and Jack physically stumbled to a knee. The stillness he'd originally thought was actually a cold fury, so frigid it burned. _Oh, crap._

_"I don't have a body. Do you understand that, you dundering idiot?" _Pitch's inner gaze felt feverish, too bright; they honed on Jack as if he were an animal he'd managed to corner._ "I am nothing but a concept in your puny head. I—am—_nothing_."_

Jack's mouth opened and, without thinking, said: "So what? You were nothing even when you had a body."

A headache exploded out of nowhere as the dark spirit's essence swelled and heaved against Jack's skull, claws sinking into every surface it could. It was as if a nest of hornets had taken flight and were stinging every thought, every memory, every emotion. Jack gripped his head, squeezing in a wild attempt to keep his head from exploding.

"_Arrgh!_ Ow! Ow! Hey! Stop it! Cut it out!"

But Pitch didn't stop. Ruthlessly, almost single-mindedly, he never let go, wrapping himself tighter and tighter around Jack's buckling mind, going straight for the teenager's soft parts. Jack stumbled to both knees, dimly aware tears were freezing on his cheeks. He gasped at the very agony of it. There was no order, no pattern, just one wave of agony after another, as if thrown in a pit of knives. He clung to sanity with slipping fingers. Enough of him remained for him to scream, "Pitch!" Desperate, he groped for his staff and, blind with pain, slashed it in wild abandon. _"STOP!"_

And, like a switch, the attack stopped.

It took a minute or two before Jack could remove his hands from his ears, and a minute more before he could remember his own name. Heavy panting filled the small cavern. He spent another moment in shivering pain as wave after wave of aftershock rolled over him. When he did open his eyes, he was instantly transported to Antarctica, to the very day he fought Pitch and lost. The miniature ice sculpture stared back at him. It was identical to the one he'd created on the desolate ice floes, down to the jagged spears shooting in every direction. It was spread out like a deadly, beautiful flower, its tips black and centre translucent. Three of its points were hairsbreadths away from piercing Pitch's chest and side. One actually nicked a dark cheek, just below a closed eye. A bubble of blood welled up before running like a tear down the face. As the young Guardian stared, he realized this was the reason Pitch had stopped.

_ You would've kept going until I was a vegetable, _he thought, incredulous at first, then frightened at how close he was having mush for brains. His friends would've found him drooling on the ground, useless. Worse than dead. The desire to use North's globe was powerful, but he shoved it aside. He needed to do this immediately, before Pitch got any more ideas. He rose to his feet as shaky as a newborn foal, using his staff as a crutch. Still panting, he wiped the remaining tear crystals from his cheeks. A hot coal of anger burned deep in his belly as he shuffled towards the prone body. Feverish chills wracked his body.

Pitch stirred. _"What are you doing? What are you—" _

"Shut up."

Surprisingly, the Nightmare King did.

When Jack spoke again, his voice was surprisingly level. Friendly, even. But it was without warmth, like winter's sunshine, blisteringly cold. He felt his lips pull back from his teeth as he said: "You pull this stunt again and I might actually lose my mind, which I'm pretty sure that's bad for both of us. We understand each other? Try this again—" deliberately, slowly, Jack pressed the nook of his shepherd's staff to the body's forehead, "—and I won't just leave a little cut next time."

_"Leave me alone and I won't have to,"_ Pitch said, but he sounded shaken.

A vicious gladness shot through Jack and he ground the staff into the forehead, hating the gray face and slack features. He imagined he could feel Pitch flinch inside his head.

_"Fine, finefinefinefine. Fine! Alright, you can put the staff away now. I said alright!"_

Jack withdrew the staff. "Fine."

A freezing silence, the only thing cold on the summer's day, descended upon them. Taking advantage of the truce, Jack lifted his staff again and concentrated on making a snowball. Instead of producing fluffiness, the creation looked like a murder weapon. The young Guardian swallowed a suddenly parched throat as he dropped the spiky lump and attempted another. And another. It was hard to stem the strange tightness in his chest as he realized everything he made incorporated the dangerous aspects of winter and none of the fun ones. Even the snowflakes, once as delicate as fairy's lace, were now as hard and needled as spider fangs. At last Jack stopped, finding himself in the centre of a brier of treacherous ice thorns. He made a fist, fighting for calm.

"You can stop what you're doing," he said, biting his cheek. His hand hurt from clenching too tight.

Sullen silence stretched like taffy. Water _plink_ed from the melting ice spears.

"Pitch?" Jack crouched besides the Nightmare King's head. "Want to answer me?"

_"I'm not doing anything," _Pitch said, sulking.

"Yes, you are. Don't lie to me, Sunshine. Why can't I make snow?"

_"Are you deaf?" _the Boogeyman snapped, quick to snarl as Jack tapped the body's face with the staff's hook._ "I said I'm not doing anything!"_

"Ohhhh, you're definitely doing something. My powers are all weird, and I want it to stop."

_"You're certainly a daft one, aren't you. It's amazing you've survived as long as you have."_

"Pitch. I swear to the _Moon_ I will—"

_ "It's the amalgamation of our magic. Don't you see? Just like Antarctica. Cold and dark together in one body." _Pitch chuckled, and there was nothing friendly about it. It felt like ice cubes rubbing against Jack's spine. The miasma that was the Boogeyman's essence folded in on itself, coiling.

"So, when will it—?"

_"End? I assume when we disentangle ourselves from each other," _Pitch replied. _"Til then, I'm afraid no fluffy snowballs for you." _There was a moment of appreciative silence. _"You know—"_

"Forget it," Jack said, standing up. "I'm not fulfilling any fantasies you might have about this. No more 'cold and dark' talks, alright? You tried that before, remember?"

The presence in the immortal teenager's head shifted again like a hunting snake, cold and irritated. Though it said nothing, Jack knew he had Pitch's full attention. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"Look. Let's just try to make it out of this without killing each other, okay? Okay. That's all I ask. Shouldn't be too hard, right?"

There was no response, but the young Guardian was relieved there wasn't anyway. The assault had left him shaken and unbalanced, and he was glad for a reprieve. True, though he had the snow globe to the Pole, it still felt he was alone in this trial. He was _literally _tied to the Nightmare King. Literally. What other creature had the misfortune to say the same? _No,_ he thought. He was being harsh. He wasn't alone. He had friends, _real _friends, and right now they were finding out a way to fix him back. Jack collapsed on a rock and leaned into the natural incline, settling to watch the terrible ice sculpture melt, too mentally tired and achy to attempt much else. The weird feverish chill wouldn't leave him. Soon the sound of _plink_ing water on stone filled the small cave, and if Jack really focused, he could hear the faint rustle of leaves outside. It was both a peaceful and dreary sound, and he found himself zoning out, exhausted beyond belief.

_ "And I _was _something." _The voice was so quiet Jack thought he'd imagined it, fiercely soft. But by then the young Guardian didn't have the strength for another fight, and let the moment slide unacknowledged.

.

.s.

.

It didn't take long for the July heat to melt the ice away. Pitch continued to say nothing as his body lay in the growing puddle, yet Jack could feel his distaste as acutely as a shudder. It brought to mind a cat shaking water from its paws, ears pinned back and eyes slitted. Day turned to late afternoon, and as light beyond the cave ripened into a rich, mellow gold, it casted long blue shadows over the forest's edge. A pair of robins warbled a sweet duet as crickets added their somnolent chirrups. Though summer was never Jack's favorite time, he couldn't help but appreciate what it had to offer. There was a vibrance to it winter would never possess, and sometimes he found himself envious. _If only it wasn't so damn hot, _he thought. Night, when it came, was almost worse, like a physical wall of smothering humidity. He felt sticky all over. With space in the cave a rare commodity, he had taken to lying on the chilled, damp ground in attempt to remain cool. Jack made a conscious effort to ignore both the body sprawled next to him and the dark creature in his head. After the trial earlier that day, the last thing he wanted was a rematch.

It was starting to get dark inside the cave when a paw disturbed some gravel.

"Snowflake? You there?"

Jack twitched. "Haven't left, Bunny."

Bunnymund stuck his head in. "We're not interrupting anything, then?"

"Oh, yeah. Totally," Jack said under his breath before climbing to his feet. He found Bunnymund and Sandy waiting for him on the forest's edge, blue in the dying light. Sandy was fanning himself with a tiny hand. Jack must've made a face, because the giant rabbit started to chuckle.

"Woof, mate, I don't blame you. I mean, could'ya imagine if Easter was in this heat? My poor eggs would cook!"

"How do you think I feel?" Jack grumbled. He should've been hundreds of miles away in the Arctic somewhere, or the Siberian tundra, keeping cool. _Or making snow, _he thought, but didn't voice.

"I dunno. How _do _you feel?" Bunnymund said, gracing the young Guardian with a narrow side-eye.

Jack didn't appreciate the suspicion, but hid most of his irritation behind a flippant, "Absolutely dandy. Never better."

"Seriously, mate. Y'have to let us know if, er . . . anything . . ."

The young Guardian said nothing, amused by the way the giant rabbit was working himself in a flustered mess. Sandy tapped the other's furry haunch. Jack looked at the flying shapes above the Sandman's head, speeding up to the point of a blur.

"Sure, Sandy. Whatever you say," he said.

Sandy pulled a disapproving face.

The immortal teenager had the grace to be abashed as he sighed and ducked his head to scratch the back of his neck. "Sorry, guys. It's me. Still kinda on edge with the whole 'sharing headspace' thing."

"What's it like?" Bunnymund asked, but his expression was braced, like he didn't want to know. Jack saw it before Bunny could mask it. He hesitated. He'd been prepared to tell everyone about their fight and what happened to his powers, but suddenly he couldn't bring himself to say it to Bunnymund. Especially not Bunny. Though a year of friendly antagonism had done much to bury the once not-so-friendly antagonism, Jack wanted nothing to disrupt the hard-earned trust. The last thing he wanted was to be treated differently, or cast out. He could sense Pitch stirring like a cobra drawn by a struggling mouse, keen and attentive. Jack schooled his face to hide his discomfort.

"He doesn't like it when I notice him," Jack said lightly, tapping his staff on a shoulder. "We're staying in our own corners till this whole nightmare is over."

"That's good, that's good," Bunnymund said, glancing at Sandy in a not so subtle plea for guidance. Sandy rolled a wrist in a _Go on _gesture. The giant rabbit fluffed out his whiskers and continued: "So, er, d'ya need anything? Something we could get you?"

"How bout Pitch outta my head? I could use that right about now."

"North is reading as fast as he can with his books," Bunnymund replied. "You how the big lug can get. So far we've come up with squat, but he's optimistic. Says we're getting close. For now, we're sticking with Tooth's plan."

"Did the Moon say anything?" Jack asked, but he assumed the answer even before the rabbit could reply. When Bunnymund confirmed his suspicions, a crick of irritation bit through him nonetheless.

"Sorry, Snowflake. Ol' Manny can be pretty tight-lipped from time to time, eh?"

Jack offered a tight-lipped smile of his own. "Yeah, I get it. Wants us to figure this on our own, blah blah blah."

Bunnymund hummed in agreement, but said nothing else to discredit the Moon. The treacherous thought _They've never experienced the Moon's cruelty _crossed his mind, and again he had to hide a shiver as Pitch stirred again.

"I'm going to see Jamie tomorrow," Jack said suddenly.

Sandy pursed his 's furry brows pulled together and voiced what the Sandman couldn't.

"You sure that's good idea, mate? We still don't know the side effects."

"Bunny, I haven't seen anyone besides you two in almost twelve hours. I'm losing my mind—that's a metaphor, Cottontail," Jack groaned at Bunnymund's intense flash of worry. "Sheesh, relax. Besides, I promised the kiddo I'd hang out."

When Bunny's worried expression deepened, Jack threw a hand in the air. "C'mon, guys. What are you worried about? That I'll turn into Pitch? That I'll—oh." Jack broke off, blinking. "Wait. You think—you think I'll turn into Pitch?"

"We don't know anything," Bunnymund said, still brows drawn. Though his words were gruff, they were not unkind. "We think you should hold off from seeing the ankle-biters til this—" he waved a paw to encompass the whole of Jack, "—is cleared."

It was hard to concentrate over the sensation of Pitch's alien emotions. The headache from their fight was returning with a vengeance, tightening around the young Guardian's head like a vice.

"Okay. Okay. Fine. No fun till Pitch is evicted," Jack said, trying to dampen the guilt of lying.

Bunnymund's shoulders slump with relief. "Thanks, Jack," he said.

Jack didn't know it was possible to feel even worse. "Yeah, yeah. Just promise me you'll figure how to get me my own head back," he said, plastering his most disarming smile. Sandy leveled a long, thoughtful look his way, and for one horrible moment Jack thought he'd see through his lies and call him out. But Sandy never brought it to Bunnymund's attention, and as the Guardian of Hope said goodbye, the little Guardian floated away on his golden cloud. When Jack was finally alone it was his turn to slump with relief. He was about to relax when Pitch's cold voice sliced through his thoughts.

_ "It's started, you know. The distrust. It's small at first, but it'll grow."_

Jack closed his eyes, counted to ten, and blew hard through his nose. "It's not gonna work, Pitch. I know what you're trying to do, and take it from me, it's not gonna work."

_"We'll see."_

Like a grey sea Pitch subsided, but Jack could sense the dark currents beneath the quiet surface. Suddenly five days felt like a thousand years.

…

_TBC_


	4. iv

"He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance."

_—__William Golding,__ Lord of the Flies_

.s.

_It's not possible, _Jack thought.

There was no way today was hotter than yesterday. But it was. By the time mid-morning trampled in like a steamroller, he kept checking his extremities to make sure they weren't melting. Soaking up the ground's coolness helped, but it was no cure. Using his magic to combat the heat was a deadly risk: he tried once and an ice shard almost skewered his stomach; only his dragonfly reflexes kept him from becoming shish kabob. His power, now merged with Pitch's, had no master. It bit and twisted at his fingertips like a rabid animal, eager to hurt, and Jack finally relented: til Pitch was out of his head, there'd be no magic, nope, none at all. The young Guardian sighed for the sixth time in as many minutes, listening to the piercing whistles of the cicadas filling the air outside the cave. How overwhelmingly _summer_.

He didn't like it. It was too hot, and Jamie was out there, waiting for him.

Jack rolled to his feet, bounced there for a moment, then stood up.

_"What are you doing?" _Pitch asked, surly.

"Ugh. I can't stay here." He headed towards the entrance, already bracing himself for the fierce sunlight.

_"Still unable to follow directions, Frost? Your little friends told you to stay by my body."_

_ "_Relax—it won't be for long," Jack said as he stood in the open, grimacing at the sun dappling all around him. It was the quintessential summer's day, miserable with humidity and gorgeous with sunshine. The sky above was almost grey with haze. "It's not like anybody can see you anyway."

Pitch clammed up as if slapped.

Jack shoved the twinge of guilty as he launched himself in the air. The summer wind was uncooperative and mulish, but the young Guardian managed to convince it to bring him to Jamie. The world rushed past him as he hurtled by the forests and fields below. Normally flying brought him joy. He'd do loop-de-loops and pull stunts that made Bunny tear his fur out. But as he flew and the morose sulking continued to progress, the guilt wouldn't fade.

"Look, Pitch, I didn't mean it like that."

_"Of course you did," _Pitch said, stiff and bitter._ "You all won. I lost. You have what _you _want. Please, continue to caper about victorious and leave me in the dark." _

At this point Jack landed in a massive oak tree, right in Burgess Park. A small river burbled beneath him, chortling as if at some mysterious joke. It was still swollen from yesterday night's deluge, its waters wrapping around the rounded stones. One part was thicker than the others, forming a natural pool where the current slowed and its depth deepened. The water was bright gold, flashing every so often with the sun's reflection. There were no children yet, but the young Guardian knew they'd be around soon enough. On a hot day like this? Absolutely. Jamie called it "Sucker's Hole," and it was a favorite place for the gang. _Only one rule: don't tell anyone about it, _Jamie had said to Jack in conspiratorial tones. Which, of course, never worked. Kids always managed to find out about Sucker's Hole.

"Thought the dark was kinda your thing," Jack said, scanning the surrounding area for the boy. "You don't like it?"

The essence in his head grew tense, like a coil being compressed._"Thank you, Frost, for your astounding powers of observation."_

With a horrible chill Jack realized he left his only bargaining chip behind if the Boogeyman went crazy again. Oh, crap. He tried to backpedal. "No, wait, Pitch—"

_"Oh no, no, allow me. You think I want to be in the dark because I hide under beds? I'm _tired _of shadows. You think skulking about like a half-forgotten nightmare is what I want? You _child_. I was a god in the Dark Ages. Do you understand, Frost? A _god. _I walked broadly and everyone knew me, feared me! I was royalty, I was . . . magnificent." _

Pitch's voice hitched, twisting with a wistful yearning that hurt to hear. _A dethroned king, _Jack thought before he could stop himself, and froze when the Boogeyman tensed again, ugly and cold. He held his breath as Pitch regarded him under a razor's edge, waiting for the dark spirit to snap, attack, anything. To his relief, the Boogeyman continued as if the moment never happened, tone clipped with frustration.

"Tch! _As if your little brain could comprehend any of what I'd just said. Even if you live your lifetime a hundred times you wouldn't even come close to the length of my existence. So do me a favor and keep your pity to yourself, or at least, keep your mouth shut on subjects you can't begin to understand." _

Jack braced himself against the tree. He kept his voice low, as if to avoid spooking a vicious animal. He didn't know what possessed him to keep conversing with the Nightmare King, especially when he was powerless to stop another assault, but he just had to say: "You're wrong, Pitch. I may not know about being a god, or having power, or being super old, but I _do_ know where you're coming from."

_ "How could you possibly know? I was _replaced,_" _Pitch said, bringing his teeth into it. _"How would you feel if some cretin came along and usurped your position?" _Frustration rose like a bitter tide, and Jack clenched his lips at the taste.

"Yeah, the Moon's a jerk," the immortal teenager said, perhaps with more feeling than he should've. "But Pitch, you can't have it both ways. You realize the Dark Ages couldn't've lasted forever; the world needs Bunny and Tooth and the others. People can't be afraid all of the time."

Pitch's essence yawed, rolling like a crocodile with a leg in its jaws. _"Humans need fear to keep them in line. The sooner you Guardians understand that, the better. I do. I've been around long enough to know them, and let me tell you one thing: you underestimate them. You think they're all mushy goodness? Wrong. They love their fear and hatred more than anything. Humans hate because they fear; their history books are dripping with examples. Why do you think they fight each other so much? How do you account for all their wars? Never underestimate a human's capacity for fear, Jack_. _Never."_

Jack was getting tired of the old song-and-dance. There was more to the world than wars, anyway. What about all the kindness in the world? All the selfless acts? Pitch was only offering a skewed version of humanity, warping the truth so it would suit him. Jack brought a little heat into his next question as he leaned into it.

"How about you, huh? You say you know humans pretty well—what about yourself? What have _you _learned about Pitch Black?"

He could sense Pitch smiling. It was a terrible sensation, like watching dogs devour a fawn._"Aaaah, so quick to judge. Yet, if I do recall, even after three hundred years you were no closer to discovering yourself. It was only after you had help from your new-found _friends _did you realize you could be."_

_ While you had nobody, _Jack thought in a knee-jerk reaction.

Pitch bristled. _"What was that?"_

"Nothing."

The Nightmare King made a sound of deep disgust._"_Pah! _None of this matters, anyway. You're not the one without a body," _came the morose reply. Jack leaned back. He knew they weren't talking about the Boogeyman's non-corporeal status, but sensed it was time to shut up. No repeat performances like in the cave, thankyouverymuch.

As if in nonchalant afterthought, Pitch's voice said: _"I suppose it would do me no service to drive you mad. As entertaining as it would be, all your faculties are needed to return to my body." _

Before Jack could reply with a sarcastic _Gee, thanks, how thoughtful of you, _a boy's voice rang clear.

"Hey! That's Jack! Jack Frost!"

Jack started and looked down from his perch. It was Jamie and his steadfast gang, dressed in swimsuits. A huge grin was scrawled across the boy's face, and Jack felt a matching one blossom across his own. The familiar thrill _He sees me _shot through the immortal teenager like electricity, tingling at his fingertips. _He sees me. _Even after a year, it still took him off guard at how awesome recognition looked in Jamie's eyes, how the boy's entire face seemed to glow; knowing he was the cause of such happiness was enough to choke the young Guardian. There was no greater feeling in the world. None. Sometimes Jack wanted to drown in it.

The young Guardian was about to hop down to greet them when a surge of _hatreddarknesswhywhywhyrage _punched him. Jack had to lean against the trunk and clutched the front of his hoodie, gasping. He quickly curled around and ducked out of view.

"Jeeze, Pitch? What's with you?"Jack hissed. He struggled to catch his breath."Chill out!"

The dark spirit said nothing, but continued to roil like a storm in a bottle. The Guardian's stomach flip-flopped as he fought the nausea down.

"Jack? Hey, you there?"

"Where is he?"

"I swear I just saw'm."

"Can you see him?"

Jack took a deep breath, counted to six, then leapt down the tree. He pasted his most disarming smile as he said, "Hey, guys—what's cooking? Oh, wait, that'd be all of you."

A chorus of young laughter greeted him. Some of Jack's unease melted away, though his stomach still continued to drop as if he were riding a roller-coaster. _Pitch, stop it! _he thought one more time before the kids converged on him. Within seconds he was bombarded with demands for snow.

"Snow forts! Please, Jack, it's just so hot!"

"Snowball fight!"

"Snow! Snow! Snow!"

Jack's smile faltered. Within seconds he imagined everything covered in ice spears, translucent and razor-sharp. His heart skipped as fear flooded through him. If he hurt any of them, gave them even a single scrape . . . Pitch pressed against him like the bristles of a steel comb, raspy and painful, like a dog straining at its leash, eager to maul and hurt.

"Why don't we do something else?" Jack said, trying to keep his voice light.

The six kids stared at him like he grew a tail.

"But you always make snow on days like this," Clyde said, appalled. "C'mon, man, we're dying here!"

But Jack was firm. His corrupted magic twisted and nipped at his fingers, eager to create chaos. He took a perverse pleasure shoving it down. "Sorry, guys. No snow today."

The previous chorus of happiness turned to groans of disappointment. "Aww, no fun."

And it happened. It was tiny, hardly worthy of note, but Jack felt it. The oddest feeling of transparency washed over him, as though substance had been sucked out of him, like he was missing a stability he'd taken for granted. He struggled to hide his panic, quick to say:

"Whoa, whoa, hey, that's a bit hasty, don't you think? C'mon, I'm sure there's lots to do without snow right now."

"It's just so hot!"

"Let's go swimming!" Pippa suggested. "We're dressed for it, anyway."

"But we went swimming three days in a row. I'm bored of swimming," Caleb said.

"Got any better ideas?" Cupcake replied, rounding on him.

"Jack _was _the better idea," Clyde grumbled.

"Well, it'll beat standing in front of the fridge sweating and arguing about it," Jamie said, mimicking a tone North sometimes used to bring bickering Guardians to heel. "Let's go."

It struck Jack how Jamie would be a leader one day, if he wasn't already. There was no more grumbling after that. The troupe made their way towards the river, Pippa and Monty leading, though Monty kept complaining about how goopy the sunscreen was on his skin. The boy was one shade away from pure white, and the young Guardian could almost hear him cooking under the sun. The twins and Cupcake were quick to follow, leaping like sure-footed goats over the rocks as they headed for the best swimming spot. Clyde howled _No fair! _as Cupcake was the first to cannonball into the golden depths. Before Jamie could join his friends, Jack pulled him aside. Without acting patronizing, the young Guardian crouched down to the boy's level and said: "Hey, thanks for that back there."

"Totally no problem," Jamie said.

_Hatehatehateicouldhavehaditallwhywhyragewhyyyyyyyyyy_

Jack had to physically look away to fight the sickness in his stomach. The urge to terrify Jamie—to terrify all of them—was overwhelming. He felt a small hot hand grip his forearm.

"Jack? You okay?"

"Ye-yeah, it's—"

_"If you tell, he'll fear you." _Pitch's voice was soft and implacable. The dark spirit's words echoed too loudly in his head, resonating with eerie precision on the young Guardian's secret fears.

Jack covered up his hesitation with another plastered smile, one Jamie didn't seem to be buying. "It's nothing. Just a headache."

"You sick?" Jamie asked, brows pulling together. The worry in the boy's voice made Jack's stomach flip-flop for a different reason.

"Kinda. Don't worry about it, kiddo. It's the heat."

Jamie gave Jack a long, searching look, similar to the one Sandy gave him last night. Jack made a shoo'ing gesture. "Go on, go on, join your friends; I'll, I'll see you later. I'll be fine, I promise."

Jamie nodded, hesitating. He was about to join the others when he asked, "Hey, we still on for tomorrow?"

_"Tomorrow? You made more plans with this little—?"_

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, kiddo."

With one last look, Jamie relented, turning away. Jack made sure the boy was preoccupied with his friends before fleeing, escaping into the trees. Despite what had happened, the immortal teenager couldn't bring himself to return to the cave; he leapt from branch to branch until the sounds of laughter and splashing were long gone. Finally Jack found a massive horse chestnut tree. It stood in the middle of a field, the only tree for a quarter mile: its canopy was so wide and thick that once he entered the leafy barrier, he was instantly hidden in a green world. Even the wind felt miles away; encased in the leaf cocoon, it was hard to imagine anything else existing.

Jack instantly rounded on the dark spirit in his head. "What the hell happened back there?"

_"You're a Guardian now, _Jack_," _Pitch said in a silken purr. _"Same rules apply. You don't entertain the little cretins? You fade away."_

"I don't see why you're so smug," Jack said between gritted teeth. "I disappear, you do too."

Pitch didn't respond, but Jack still got the sense the Boogeyman was inordinately pleased.

"But that wasn't what I was talking about. That horrible feeling. What was that?"

_"What can I say?" _Pitch sounded like he was brushing dust off his shoulders._ "They get under my skin."_

"'Under your skin'? 'Under your—'" Jack wanted to laugh and scream at the same time. He scrubbed his face instead. "Pitch. You have some serious anger issues to work out."

Pitch's essence tensed. _"Can you blame me? That child was the reason I failed."_

"Ha ha, nooooo, you failed because your plan wasn't going to work in the first place. The Dark Ages aren't gonna happen again."

_"They will," _Pitch said with unsettling conviction. _"Maybe not now, thanks to you lot, but the Dark Ages will return."_

Jack snorted. _As if. _

_ "You think I'm joking?" _the voice said, soft and chilly. Jack struggled not to shudder as the Boogeyman's cold essence brushed up against his skull. _"You think the world will always be a happy place?"_

"Oh, not this talk again, please. I don't care—"

_"Of course you don't care. You're the Guardian of _Fun,_" _Pitch said, spitting the word like a curse. _"You're more than happy to believe in the goodness of everything. _Pah. _Being a Guardian has made you soft. Have you forgiven the Moon for what he did to you? Have you already forgotten the three hundred of years of solitude you've suffered? Have you forgotten what it feels like to be cast out? Ignored? Because one day it will happen again. All your little friends will grow old and die, and the famous Jack Frost will fade away like I have, and you will once again be alone. I see it, you know." _Jack kept himself very still, head ringing from the Boogeyman's hissing. He was back in Pitch's lair all over again, powerless to stop the onslaught of words._"Your fear. It's all laid out for me to observe. You're afraid this is all an elaborate hoax, that one day your precious Jamie won't see you. That you being a Guardian is but a passing fancy, that—"_

"That's enough, Pitch," Jack said. For whatever the reason, the other did. The immortal teenager took the chance to say: "Yeah, I am scared. It's crazy to think I'm a Guardian after all I've been through. Yeah, I'm afraid of losing Jamie; I'm pretty sure I might never grow out of it. But you know what? So what. I don't let fear rule me. And neither should you."

Pitch barked a laugh._"Oh-hoh? Me? Ruled by fear? Ha! I _am _fear."_

"No, you _deal _in fear," Jack said, steadying himself on a branch. "But you're afraid too."

There was a sharp sting of pain as Pitch dug his metaphysical claws into Jack's mind. The young Guardian was miles away from his one defense, utterly at the Boogeyman's mercy. He braced for the attack he knew would come, wincing.

The grip tightened indiscernibly, teasing. _"It would be so easy to snap your mind right now. Like bending a fishbone," _the dark spirit said with a chill that never left his voice. But after a long moment, the claws withdrew, albeit reluctantly. _"I meant what I said. It wouldn't serve me to destroy you."_

Jack's relaxing was like the melting of a glacier: slowly, drop by drop, til at last he slumped bonelessly against the tree. He rested his staff on a nearby branch, then stretched a leg out and brought the other knee to his chest, resting an arm on the boney kneecap. It felt good to do so. Once situated, Jack leaned his head back and looked up at the million places where the sun leaked through the green canopy. Every time the wind came through the spaces would change, giving the tree the impression it was swaying. It blinded him at times, but he didn't care. Maybe it was the combination of what happened with Jamie's friends, the conversations with Pitch, and the somnolent, green universe he was in right now, because for whatever the reason, he said:

"You're right."

_"What?"_

"I wasn't honest before," Jack said. He didn't know where all this confessional mien was coming from—this was Pitch, sworn enemy of the Guardians. Enemy? No, more like opposite force. And as Jack slouched in the horse chestnut tree, hot and sticky and tired, he realized Pitch was no more evil than a storm or tempest. A necessary evil, if evil was the right word for it. Why was he confessing to Pitch? The Boogeyman had tried to leave him brain dead yesterday, and before that, almost destroyed the Guardians. Given his way, the Nightmare King would cover the world in darkness just so he could be the lord of the shadows once again. Perhaps it was due to the non-existent space between them. It seemed almost natural for confessions to occur. Pitch himself seemed far more chatty than he'd been for the past twenty hours. Jack wondered if he'd ever be as close to another living creature as he was now with the Boogeyman.

"I do care. And I think you're right. Well, maybe not about the actual Dark Ages, but the idea of it. You. Us—the Guardians." Jack swallowed, then shouldered through. "Jamie."

_ "Don't play coy, Frost. It doesn't suit you."_

"I'm not. I'm being serious."

Pitch scoffed. _"You're one of the 'Big Five' now, Frost. You'll say anything to convince me otherwise." _

But even as the dark spirit said that, Jack couldn't help but hear a note of hesitation. He understood then Pitch wanted to believe him. Wanted to trust. Even after all of what they've been through, Pitch was still in Antarctica, still desperate for an ally, a friend. _We will never move past Antarctica, _Jack thought, fully aware Pitch could hear him, but didn't care. The young Guardian got the unmistakable sense Pitch was frowning at him.

"It'll happen to us too," Jack said, still caught in the strange, introspective mood. "We won't always win. Kids'll grow up. Summer always comes back."

He could feel Pitch staring at him. It was like being under a microscope.

_"You're telling the truth." _The voice was expressionless.

"Yup,"Jack said, popping the 'p.'

_ "That is mighty magnanimous of you," _the Nightmare King said, voice still oddly empty. No discernible emotion leaked through. _"Guardians with longsightedness are rare indeed." _

Jack tried to decipher the confusion that was the Boogeyman's mental state, but it was like trying to translate a language utterly foreign to his own. He couldn't tell if the dark spirit was sarcastic, serious, genuine, or in any other recognizable mood. He gave up. "Not sure what 'magnanimous' means, but thanks."

Pitch made a weird rumble sound, then said: _"May we go back to my body now?"_

Jack closed his eyes. "Sure. Why not."

.

.s.

.

It was night. A dim cacophony of cricket chirrups and bat squeaks rose from the fields, nearly deafening to any nearby. The sky above abnormally clear: stars blanketed the dome in white brilliance, numbered in the thousands. Jack Frost looked on. He remembered hating the nightly reminder of the Moon's silence, how every single night he looked in yearning, hopeful. He always thought _Maybe this time the Moon'll tell me who I am, _right before the crippling disappointment_. _Now everything was changed. _Now I'm a Guardian_. Though it'd been a year now, it was still strange to look up, not in anger and bitterness, but with acceptance. A darker thought nestled in his mind, perhaps stained by Pitch's influence. Today was the first time he experienced the downside of being a protector of children. It was one thing to see the other Guardians suffer, but himself? He'd felt the barest taste today at the stream, hardly more than a wrinkle, yet even now he couldn't get it out of his head. He'd seen what it had done to the others when Pitch unleashed his assault, and the tiny quiver of apprehension was enough to ruin his star-gazing.

Jack heard North's approach before he saw him. Starlight glinted off his sleigh as the reindeer skidded to a halt in the nearby field, legs stiff as they plowed massive furrows in the soft earth. They blew and tossed their heads, acting as foals as grass brushed their underbellies. Jack could hear the burly Guardian mutter Russian praises as he tossed the reins aside, the sleigh creaking as he descended. Jack lifted a hand in greeting, and soon found the other sitting besides him.

"How goes it, Jack?" North asked, voice miles away from his normal booming tones. Against the white sky he was nothing but a silhouette, features too dark to make out.

Jack regarded his friend from beneath his hood. "Dude. You seriously wearing a fur coat?"

"_Bah! _It still winter in the Pole. Here is just . . . inconvenience." North clucked his tongue. "Ah, sorry. You must be feeling the heat. Why don't you make snow?"

Ah, yes. The moment Jack had been dreading since the morning. He opened his mouth, fully prepared to repeat his performance to Bunnymund. What came out, though, was nowhere close. Sitting in the dark, hidden by both his hoodie and the night, Jack found it easy to tell the truth. The whole truth. He started with how his powers had merged with Pitch's and couldn't be controlled, how he almost stabbed himself trying to make a snowball. Jack found himself relaying the events by the stream. By the end he was staring at his hands, seeing nothing.

"I can't get their faces out of my head, North. They were so disappointed. I've never been so _un-fun_ to them before."

"You are too hard on yourself. In week's time they'll forget whole thing," North said, not unkindly. "Children like that."

"It was horrible." He looked at North with a new respect. Even after Pitch had done, no matter how demoralized they were, they were prepared to go down with a fight. Jack pressed his lips together, sobering from the romanticized heroism. North was as weak as an old man. Tooth, flightless. Sandy, dead, and Bunny nothing but a fluff ball. How could they not lose hope after something like that? If that happened to him, would he have acted the same? For a tiny, terrible moment, he resented the fickleness of children.

"Pitch says it will happen again," Jack said.

North shrugged with surprising nonchalance. "Pitch says many things. It is hard to say what will eventually happen. _Ha!_ I know this, though: he will have to try much harder next time!"

_"Oh, I mean to," _Pitch said with dark promise. Jack shuddered.

"You see, Pitch is not wrong, but not right, either," North continued. "He sees only small picture, not whole one. His eyes only see the darkness in all of us. But there is happiness, Jack. Love, warmth, friendship. Wonder. Hope. Pitch understands none of these things."

_"I understand perfectly, you giant windbag," _Pitch snapped. _"It's you who thinks there's goodness in everyone. Was there goodness in Ratko Mladic? Oskar Dirlewanger? Ilse Koch? I could go on till your little head spun. Ask him. Ask him if there was love and warmth in any of them."_

Jack licked his lips, hesitant, torn between asking and remaining silent. Curiosity won. "But then how can you explain all the bad things people do?" he asked. "I mean, Pitch kinda makes a good point. With human history, for example. It's pretty bleak stuff."

North chuckled, patting the younger Guardian on the back without being patronizing. There was no judgment or condemnation in the burly spirit's voice, only a warm patience. "What Pitch shows you is a world where cruelty is before kindness. But he's wrong. Don't you see? The Boogeyman has twisted and suppressed all that is good inside him. He cannot see kindness and empathy are essential to life—to your life, to all life! Why would humanity evolve without it? Where would they be without compassion? Joy? The world would fall apart without it, Jack. Remember this."

Jack hummed in a vague agreement. He was beginning to feel stuck in the middle of an argument between two legends.

"What if this is permanent?" he asked again, perhaps a little too loudly. "What if I can't get Pitch outta my head? What if I can't use my powers anymore and I—" _Become invisible again, _he was going to say, but choked, "—disappear," he finished, hoping North didn't pick up on the hitch. Luckily, the moment was too subtle for the Guardian of Wonder, because he plowed on with a hearty:

"No, no, no. You think such dark things, Jack—we will find a way to get you back. I feel it! In my belly."

"Have you found anything yet?"

"Na! I was bit of thief many years ago; we have lots of books to look through. But I feel we nearing end."

"Thanks, North."

"Anytime, Jack," the other said, and the warmth in his voice was palpable. "We're here for you. You are no longer alone."

"Feels good to hear it," Jack said over the sounds of Pitch fake-gagging. _Stop it, _he thought.

_"How can I? You're taking advice from a creature who has no concept of love."_

"No concept of—" Jack shut up so quickly he almost amputated his tongue.

"Hm? You say something?"

"What? No, no, nothing," the immortal teenager said. In the privacy in his mind, he said to Pitch, _All you've done is thrown me a couple of names of I'm sure supremely bad people. And what do you mean, 'No concept of love'? The guy is pretty much one huge teddy bear. Are you saying I should take _your _advice on love? You? Pitch, have you ever loved anything in your entire life?_

_ "Careful, Frost," _Pitch said. Claws pricked the young Guardian's mind.

Jack winced and said nothing, focusing in on North, who hadn't stopped talking.

". . . to go, but know we will find the answer soon."

"Oh?" Jack stood up and pulled back his hood, even though in the darkness it meant little. "You're leaving now?"

The young Guardian felt the heavy weight of North's hand on his shoulder. The other was a furnace compared to the winter spirit, and as much as Jack appreciated the gesture, he was relieved when the hand was removed.

"All this will be over soon," North said, and Jack could literally hear his friend's smile. "Trust your belly. And remember: if anything happens, use globe." Then the Guardian of Wonder was moving back to the sleigh, his cape making slithery noises as it dragged over the grass. As with the first time with Bunnymund and Sandy, Jack watched silently until North was gone, struggling with the ingrained anxiety of abandonment. In the silence which followed, Pitch snorted.

_"A creature who has no concept of hatred won't have a clue about love."_

Emboldened by what Pitch had said earlier, Jack snorted back. "Uh, Pitch? Reality check: all you know about is hate."

Pitch coiled, pressing against the young Guardian's skull. _"Shows you what you know," _came the bitter reply, and no matter how much Jack prodded for clarification, the Nightmare King remained an unapproachable force for the rest of the night.

…

_TBC_


	5. v

"Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired.

My heart is sad and sick.

From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever."

—Chief Joseph

_._s.

Jack saw the stars disappear and night morph into dawn. Eventually everything became rosy as the sunrise lit up the haze, the grass spread out in a thick, dewy carpet. It didn't feel horribly hot yet, though Jack could tell it would be another hellishly humid day. The crickets and cicadas were slow to start, but the young Guardian knew they would been soon squealing and chirping. Pitch had been quiet all night, even after North had left. He was an unmovable weight, a stone for all he moved. When the Boogeyman began to squirm in irritated spasms Jack quickly turned his attentions elsewhere. The dark spirit settled. Balance returned. A long-legged fox slunk by, its back covered in dew. It paused long enough to flash the winter spirit a yellow-slitted glance before slinking off into the bushes. When Jack judged it was late enough he clung to a passing breeze and hitched a ride all the way to Jamie's house; unlike other capricious winds, this one knew exactly where to bring the young Guardian. The suburban sprawl soon replaced the forests and fields as Jack flew over the rolling Pennsylvania landscape.

Jack felt his chest tighten at the sight of the familiar house. Pitch made a jarring clicking sound, a shard of _hurtangerwhywhywhy_ lancing through him.

"Relax, Sunshine."

_"Don't call me that." _

"Well, stop acting like a big baby."

Jack landed on the trim white windowsill, balancing on the balls of his feet. It only took a few taps on the glass before a small hand unlatched it. The young Guardian felt his face stretch in an involuntary smile.

"Hey there, Jamie."

"Jack!" The boy regarded Jack from under a mop of sun-lightened hair, unruly with humidity. The bridge of his nose was peeling from a slight sunburn. "You came! C'mon in!"

Jack entered the boy's room with a wild animal's grace, naked feet hardly making a sound on the floorboards. Little had changed in a year: the bedspread and curtains were the same, as well as the eclectic mix of encyclopedias, historic monster guides, and storybooks heaping the shelves. Rollerblades, street hockey sticks, and a bent fishing pole filled one corner in a disorganized mess. Despite the clutter the room smelled fresh, like clean laundry. There were more drawings on the wall, all of them including a crayon interpretation of Jack Frost. The immortal teenager took a moment to appreciate the childlike renditions of their friendship, his chest tight and aching for moment. His smile softened into a rare contentment, deep and wide.

_ "I would've won if it weren't for him. I would've had everything." _Pitch's frustration tasted like ash. He was sulking hard enough to give Jack a headache, but the young Guardian didn't was worth it. Jamie was worth it. He would be worth anything.

The house was quiet for another reason despite the early hour: Sophie was gone; she spent her days at a summer day camp, and wouldn't be back til five. Jack liked Sophie—the little 'ankle-biter' as Bunnymund put it—but no child could replace the special connection he shared with Jamie Bennett. The boy believed in him when no others would, even when the Guardians abandoned him. The solace Jamie brought the the winter spirit was soul-aching. But Jack knew Pitch wasn't lying. He knew there'd be a day when Jamie wouldn't be there to open his window for him, wouldn't be there to say, _Hi, J—_

"Head feeling better today, Jack?"

Jack blinked. "Huh? Sorry, what?"

"You look sad. You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." But his head wasn't. He felt warm as Pitch's growing anger and bitterness tightened around his forehead. Even one of his eyes felt funny, like there was something hot lodged behind it, but he didn't want to worry the boy. "C'mon, show me what you've been raving about."

An infectious grin sprung across Jamie's face. "You have to check it out. Follow me!"

Jamie led the Guardian of Fun into the attic, but not before grabbing a pitcher of ice water and a glass. A sweltering heatwave met them as they climbed the ladder to the dark and musty room. The heavy aroma of dust and moth balls was choking. It would've been unbearable had it not been for the windows; unlatching them helped, the tiny breeze a bringing a balm to the unventilated attic. Pitch was a dark swirling mass. Jack's head was starting to feel as if a blade was lodged inside it, his right eye faintly aching. _Quit it, Pitch! _But the Boogeyman gave no answer, and continued to roil in a sea of malcontent.

"What brought you up here?" Jack asked. He peered at the exposed rafters laddering above him, dimly reminded of ribs.

"I dunno. Exploring, I guess."

Jamie was somewhere deeper in the murk, hidden except for the dry, rustling sound of moving boxes. Jack tapped his staff's hook against his shoulder as he slowly made his way toward the boy, avoiding the odd mountain of boxes, old toys, Christmas decorations, and winter clothes. He paused by a large, full-length antique mirror. A piece of sheer material half-covered it, but he could still make out his own face staring back, pale and eternal. When he pressed his hand against the glass and withdrew it, a handprint remained in the dust. Jack made a soft sound, then wiped himself clean on the seat of his pants.

"Hey, do you know when that thunderstorm is coming in?" Jack asked the murk. Even his voice was muffled.

"I think Sunday or Monday," was the answer. "S'posed to be a big one. Why?"

"Oh, no reason."

He found Jamie working steadily, doggedly, sweating worse than the pitcher of water by his feet. His breathing was soft and heavy. The tiny labored gasps pulled at Jack's heart, and though his fingers itched to create some snow, he knew it was useless. He could sense Pitch stirring, but made a conscious effort to ignore him. Jamie made a triumphant noise and rocked back on his knees, lifting an old photograph. It was large, maybe seventeen inches long, twelve inches wide. It had been professionally mounted over a hundred years ago, but the years had not been kind to it: UV damage and humidity had done its best to scour the image off the paper, the sepia degraded to a pale, mottled yellow. All what remained was a washed out row of soldiers on identical white horses. The soldiers were clearly in an exotic, arid environment. Muskets adorned their shoulders. Jamie stroked one soldier in particular with reverent fingers, eyes soft.

"It's the only picture of my great granddad," he said. "See?" He shuffled forward on his knees, positioning so Jack could see. Jack crouched besides him, mirroring his stance. There was an inscription at the bottom: BRITISH ARMY, ROYAL IRISH FUSILIERS—THE MOUNTED INFANTRY. 1908 AT AMBALA, INDIA. Then, in neat typewriter letters: Sir Arthur Benedict Bennett.

_"He died terrified his life was meaningless." _The voice was vicious. _"Bled out for five hours through a bullet in his stomach. Sniveled the whole time."_

"I'm sure he was very brave," Jack said, maybe a trifle too loudly. _Stop it. You're being cruel. _

_ "I am the Boogeyman," _was the snarled reply. _"Cruel is what I do."_

_ No, what you do is— _But Jack didn't want an argument. Not now, not here. _You have to let go. _

". . . to be an explorer like him," Jamie was saying, oblivious of Jack's inner struggle. "Not with the guns and stuff—not to hurt anything—but going to Africa and the jungles, y'know? Finding Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster and dragon bones. Whaddya think?"

Jack kneeled down and looked Jamie dead in the eyes. "That sounds great, kiddo," he said. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Jamie frowned, staring hard at Jack's right eye, the same one which had been bothering the winter spirit since stepping in the boy's room.

"Uh, Jack? Um, your eye. It's . . . it's like—" Jamie didn't finish, biting his lower lip.

It was Jack's turn to frown. He stood up and went to the antique full length mirror. He gasped, stumbling back. His left was the same blue as always, but his right now looked as if Pitch was staring back at him. Metallic, golden, it was a gryphon's eye, a monster's eye, and the longer Jack stared at it, the more horrified he became.

"No." It was hardly more than a whisper. Jack wouldn't've been capable of anything louder; all the air had been driven from his lungs.

_ "I don't know what you're complaining about." _The Boogeyman was purring. _"I think it's quite an improvement."_

Jack slapped a hand over it. "Jamie, I have to go. I'll be back, promise!" Not even waiting for a response, he fled through one of the windows, launching himself high in the air. He was not fifteen meters away before he hurled North's globe. Instead of falling to the ground it exploded into a bright, swirling vortex. The winter spirit threw himself into the centre, experiencing the _stomachdropsluurrrrp _sensation before appearing right in the middle of North's globe room. He skidded to a halt before the massive thing, face full of Australia. Within seconds jingling bells coalesced all around him as elves ran into each other like bumper cars. Yetis stopped what they were doing, peering curiously at him. Jack kept his hand plastered over his offending eye, breathing hard.

"Jack? What's wrong?" It was North, without cape or hat, dressed as he was the day Jack was kidnapped to the Pole. There were fruitcake crumbs in his beard. Behind him were everyone: Bunnymund; Tooth and her girls; Sandy, all in various stages of surprise. Jack's stomach clenched. He wanted to tell North in secrecy. Now they were all hurrying over, getting too close. They'd see what he was becoming.

Jack held up his staff. "Stay back!"

Everyone stopped. The Yetis exchanged looks, their heavy mustachios bristling as they shrugged at each other.

"What's the matter? Are you okay?" Tooth asked. Her girls chirruped concern.

"You were right, Bunny," Jack said. _It's come to this. Oh, man, it's bad. _

_ "Oh, don't be so glum!" _Pitch was vibrating with glee.

"Not sure what you mean, mate," Bunnymund said, ears twitching. He stood alongside North, every inch the warrior Guardian Jack had come to trust.

Jack exhaled hard, steeling himself for the reactions he knew would follow. He took his hand away and looked North dead in the face. Jack was prepared for them all: horror, fear, aghast pity. What he wasn't prepared for was North's calm sigh, and the relaxed slump of the others' shoulders.

"It's happening as expected," the Guardian of Wonder said. He stared unabashed at the gold eye, stroking his chin beneath his beard.

Jack blinked and stood tall, letting his staff drop. "Happening? What's happening? How d'you know?"

"We found the book, Jack," Tooth said. She flew closer, but still kept her distance, as if trying not too spook him. Though it appeared she wanted to look at his transformed iris, her gaze remained steady on his blue one. "The one that explains everything. We were about to find you, but it looks like you got to us first."

"Okay, then tell me! And why are you guys acting so calm about it? Am I turning into Pitch?"

Sandy shook his head emphatically.

"Nope," Bunnymund said.

"No?" Jack's shoulders relaxed further. His spine straightened. "So, I'll be fine?"

They all nodded. It looked like they all had hours to digest this, whereas Jack wanted to run and dance a jig and fly. He wanted to go in so many directions his body vibrated in place, humming with relieved energy. He felt a _Whoop!_ building in his throat. Why weren't they all as happy as he was?

"Then why does my eye look like Pitch's?" he asked. He didn't want to see another mirror until this nightmare was over. Gold looked horrible on him, anyway.

His friends exchanged odd looks. Tooth took charge, saying, "The way the book explains it, it's Pitch's essence's last attempt to regain a body. But it will lose. You see, you're not in danger, Jack. _He_ is."

The urge to run around congealed. Suddenly what the youngest Guardian had taken for calmness was actually graveness.

Jack and Pitch said at the same time: "What?"

Tooth mistook Jack's sharp tone for anger. She hurried to say, "If we do nothing, you'll be unaffected. As for Pitch . . . well, two spirits weren't meant to inhabit the same body. Eventually the host rejects the symbiote. If we don't return Pitch to his body, he'll . . ."

"Die," Bunnymund said. There was no sadness in the giant rabbit's voice, just a soldier's coolness.

"How long does he have?" Jack asked, trying to talk over the increasing agitation in his head.

The Big Four kept looking at each other like they didn't know how to break the news. Pitch's mounting irritation and fear tasted like iron on Jack's tongue.

Finally North admitted: "Not long."

_"What? What does he mean? What does he mean, 'not long'? Ask him what he means!"_

Jack did. North scratched his chin, squinting. "Two days? Three at most?"

_"What!" _Pitch's distress was a live electrical wire. Jack kept wanting to twitch and slap imaginary bugs crawling up his arms. _"That's not specific. Where are the specifics? Show me the book! I demand to read the passage!"_

Jack relayed as much. Without a word the Guardians brought Jack to a nearby table where a inconspicuous book was open seemingly at random. It was small, no bigger than twelve inches wide and an inch thick, and as Jack neared it, he could smell its age. SPIRIT ILLNESSES was scrawled over its cover. He read where he was directed. As the others had said, it wasn't specific. Pitch kept squawking for more information, convinced they were hiding the answers.

"I'm sorry," North said when Jack passed the Nightmare King's message. "That is only book we find. In every example of this happening, unless spirit is returned to its body, it will wither and die. Never have two coexisted beyond several days."

"Well, we woke up stuck on Wednesday," Jack said. The hairs on his neck stiffened in response to Pitch's fear-anger. "Today's Friday. You just need to hold on for a few more days."

_"A few more days? I could be dead by then!"_

"There's nothing we can do until Sunday's thunderstorm. Right, guys?"

Tooth shrugged. "Though it doesn't say, we still need to limit all the variables. The less we change, the better."

Bunnymund scoffed. "If, of course, we want to go through with it."

Tooth's mouth thinned, but didn't argue. Sandy puffed his cheeks and looked away. Jack stared at them, suddenly understanding why he'd found them so serious. _They were talking about this before I came, _Jack thought. _Deciding whether or not to save Pitch. _

The giant rabbit looked around, ears flattening. "Why do we need him, anyway? I mean, all he does is cause misery and trouble."

A strange gleam entered Pitch's emotions, like light leaking from a bullet hole. When the dark spirit spoke again, it sounded like he was shaking head in a slow, hypnotizing manner. _"Ohhh, no. Ohhhh, no._ _We made a deal, remember? Or has your craven nature forgotten that? If you go back on your promise, I'll tear your mind apart. Go on. Dare me. Give me a reason to."_

The threat hung like a guillotine blade. The others picked up Jack's haunted expression and crowed around closer.

"Jack?" Tooth said. "You alright? You look like you're in pain."

"Sorry. He's upset. He says he'll crush my mind if you don't try to save him."

"He can't," Bunnymund said, tossing a boomerang up and catching it with lazy ease. "The book says once the host—that'd be you, Snowflake— 'exhibits traits' of the symbiote, blah blah, then it's all downhill for poor little Pitch. Go on. Have him try."

Jack flashed the rabbit a look of intense consternation. They weren't there that horrible day. They didn't hear his mindless screaming, or experienced the sensation of a flayed brain. Bunnymund caught his expression and stopped throwing the boomerang. He faced the winter spirit and, visage softening, said gently, "Believe me, mate. You're safe. Pitch can't hurt you anymore."

Jack bowed his head a little, unwilling to hope, desperate to believe. Lowly, almost to himself, he said, "Pitch, is this true?"

Pitch watched with the caged patience of one who hates, and hates utterly. Jack could feel his rage as if he'd drank whisky, his throat and belly burning.

"Pitch?" the immortal teenager asked again, prodding. He was morbidly curious despite himself.

Instead of answering, the Boogeyman began to shrill, _"I've always known this was a ploy to kill me. Ever since my defeat, you've all been plotting to get rid of me for good!"_

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. "No one's been plotting. That lightening storm was an accident."

_"Oh? Oh? Tell that to all your friends! They're the ones who want me to die!"_

"No one is going to stop getting you to your body," Jack replied, weary.

"No? D'ya need a reminder with whom we're dealing with?" Bunnymund said. "You didn't see him in the Dark Ages, mate, but we did. You don't know who you're dealing with." He then speared North a heavy, significant look. "Are we gonna forget what he did during the Dark Ages? Remember 1348?"

The Guardian of Wonder leveled the lanky rabbit a heavy look of his own. "We're not murderers," North said, reminding Jack once more why he was the true leader of the Guardians. "I will not sit back knowing we could've tried."

"Neither will I," Jack quickly said. He moved to stand besides North and Sandy and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll be there for the thunderstorm."

Bunnymund's whiskers fluffed out. Unlike the others, he had no problem looking at Jack's metallic eye. "You realize if we do this, it's no longer about saving you, but saving Pitch. Pitch. The Boogeyman, remember? The one who tried to kill us last year? The one who actually did with Sandy? Cover the world in darkness? Helloooooooo? Ring a bell anyone?"

"It's alright, Bunny," Tooth said, though her voice also held a soldier's coolness. It was steady, unaffected. There was no pity. "There's no guarantee it would work, anyway."

Sometimes it was hard for Jack to remember how much the Tooth Fairy had suffered under Pitch's short reign of terror. And that was only last year—Bunnymund reminded Jack how young he was compared to all of them, how his three hundred years were mere drops compared to their buckets. Pitch and the Big Four shared a history he never had, and it showed in their less-than-solicitous expressions. 1348 was almost a thousand years ago. What battles have they fought together? What friends, lost? In that moment Jack felt his youth and inexperience as keenly as a slap. But he'd meant what he'd said: deep down, he knew the world needed the Boogeyman. Fear played a role in a child's development, and though he didn't really know why yet, he latched onto it with single-minded focus. Since being shackled to the Nightmare King, Jack learned more about the dark spirit than ever before, and what he'd gleaned resonated throughout his being.

Pitch needed to be saved.

…

_TBC_


	6. vi

"She sat staring with her eyes shut, into his eyes, and felt as if she had finally got to the beginning of something she couldn't begin, and she saw him moving farther and farther away, farther and farther into the darkness until he was the pin point of light."

—Flannery O'Connor, _Wise Blood _

.s.

Jack touched down in the grassy clearing, grimacing at the sweltering heat. A fighting pair of hummingbirds whizzed past, darting like miniature fighter jets as the smell of hot grass, tansy, and warm dirt ran rampant. He judged it be late afternoon, passing the hottest part of the day. The cicadas were practically screaming, their discordant wailing drowning out all other sounds. Jack pocketed North's snow globe and began to make his slow trek towards the the rocky caverns, swishing his staff absentmindedly through the long vegetation. He also pocketed the eye-patch he had filched from a distracted Yeti, snatching it from the large pile before anyone noticed. A gold eye wouldn't keep Jack from seeing Jamie, but he didn't want to scare the kid, or raise unwanted questions. The more he could keep the Pitch-thing under wraps, the better.

The Boogeyman's fear-rage was a hurricane in Jack's head. Everything on the outside was tumultuous and snarling, furious in its strength, but its centre was eerie calm. It was a void that had no bottom and no top, but a cold, seeping motionless. At this point it didn't surprise Jack. There was a stillness he hadn't realized about the Nightmare King. All last year he'd always seen the Boogeyman in motion, a flurry of activity, but now the young Guardian understood Pitch was a spider, gifted with an iron patience. He was like water, whose measured tenacity weathered down even the highest of mountains. An enemy with the ability to wait centuries made the dark spirit even more dangerous than the others had previously thought. But none of that mattered. It was hard to remember Pitch was the enemy when having a front-row seat to his distress. And not just that. Before Jack would've felt Pitch's anger as clearly as any physical stimuli; now he could only feel it at a distance, as if experiencing it behind thick glass.

Tentatively, the young Guardian reached out to brush the icy depths, bypassing the snarling exterior without a scratch. The result was instantaneous.

_"What are you doing?"_

"Trying to calm you down. What do you think I'm doing?"

_"How is this calming me down?"_

"It's what friends do. Y'know, help each other?"

_"We are not friends_._" _Pitch hissed the word like an insult. The dark spirit physically retracted from Jack's attempts at comfort. _"Just because I've fed you a few scraps of information does not make us even remotely friends!"_

Jack removed his metaphorical hand slowly. He didn't know why he tried in the first place. "This is your fear talking."

_"I am not afraid!" _he shrilled.

But Pitch was. His fear filled was literally filling Jack's head.

"There's no shame in being scared," Jack said. Even though it no longer hurt him, if felt weird seeing the Boogeyman suffering. "If I were you I'd be scared too."

Pitch snarled. He began to pace with a single-minded violence, voice rising with every word. _"I need to get out! I demand you fix this!"_

"Pitch, I can't—"

_"Let me out!"_

"For the love of—"

_"LET ME OUT!"_

Jamie once showed Jack a Youtube video of a cat accidentally falling in a tube of water. Its desperate, frenzied attempts to escape were hilarious to watch, but observing Pitch's same response didn't make Jack laugh now. He stared, wide-eyed, as the dark creature lashed and struck and rebounded, scrabbling and scratching any foothold he could find, gibbering _lemmeoutlemmeout _the whole while. It was like watching a hamster in one of those plastic balls. There was no devastating pain, only the barest sensations of pressure. Jack unleashed a sigh as a weight rolled off his chest, more relieved in that moment than he could say. _Whaddya know? The giant kangaroo was right, _he thought. He was no longer a hostage.

Suddenly the resistance gave. The writhing softened and fell away, until it was like holding smoke. Jack could still sense the Boogeyman, but it was a shadow of what he once was.

"Pitch? Pitch!"

_"I'm not deaf," _was the surly, if faint, reply. It sounded as if Pitch was out of breath._"It's nothing. Go away, I said go away! I don't need your pity. You've wanted this all along." _

Jack scrubbed his face. Honestly, it was like being tied to a baby. "Oh, stop being so melodramatic. You're worse than the rabbit."

_"Who would mourn for the Boogeyman, anyway?" _Pitch continued to say, as if not hearing Jack at all, still breathless._ "I bet you all will throw a celebration."_

"Seriously? I can get you a soap box if it'll help. You're being ridiculous."

_ "It's happened before to others, you know."_

"What, getting struck by lightening?"

_"No!" _Some of the Nightmare King's strength returned._ "Fading, you halfwit. It's happen before. The gwyllgi. Huldras, n__ö__kkens, even the leshi. They're all spirits faded to dust, forgotten. No! This was your plan all along, and nothing you can say will convince me of otherwise." _

"Stop it. You're going to be fine," Jack said, yet even as he said it, he was unable to stop the tiniest flicker of doubt. He'd never heard of any of the creatures Pitch had rattled off, which made him wonder how many creatures had risen and fallen because humans had forgotten their legends. The same strange resentment as before flickered through Jack at children's tendency to forget. It didn't seem fair his entire existence—all of their existences—hinged on human belief. The tether was just too fragile.

_ "Oh, just let me rest in peace," _the Boogeyman said, miserable and was an intense weight to his words, a bitter futility, as if living was a terrible thing to endure. Jack decided he was done trying to soothe the dark creature and ducked into the little cave. It was exactly as he'd left it, except—

"Whoa," he said, unable to stop himself.

The body laid there, comatose for all it moved, pale and lifeless. That in itself wasn't what pulled Jack up short, so short he hit his forehead on a rock overhang. At first glance it seemed nothing was amiss, but as Jack neared, rubbing his bruised head, he could see Pitch's body was inconsistent a good three inches around the edges. He could see the ground through the Boogeyman's shoulder. When Jack reached own, his fingers phased through.

_ "Stop that!" _Pitch snapped, but Jack took advantage of his newfound power and batted away the Boogeyman's indignant squawks as easily as a bear would flies.

"So Tooth was right. We do fade," he murmured. Which only made him wonder if they, too, had seen this before. He found out where the body became solid again his fingers couldn't pass through. He stood up, wiping his hand on the front of his blue hoodie. He hid a shudder, understanding he was watching the Boogeyman physically decay in front of him.

"You just need to hold on for a few more days, that's all," he said.

_"What do you care," _was the bitter reply.

Jack bared his teeth. Enough was enough. "You know what? I dunno. I dunno know why we should save you. You were a jerk before, you're a jerk now, and you'll be a jerk if you survive this. You tried to leave me brain dead a few days ago, and still would if you had half the chance. You hurt all of us last year, Sandy most of all. You drove a freaking arrow in him, for crap's sake! So why don't you shut up before I change my mind, huh? Just, just stop."

_"Do it, then." _The voice was stiff, brittle. _"Kill me. You won't hear me beg."_

Jack smiled, eyes untouched and cold. "You forget you're in my head,"he said. "I know you're lying."

The dark spirit was incoherent for a moment, snarling more like a voiceless animal than the calculating, collected Nightmare King Jack remembered from last year. The winter spirit waited patiently as Pitch visibly tried to control himself. When he spoke again, his tone was withering.

_"Everything you've said is true. If I could rid you lot forever, I would. I won't stop. Why continue this charade? Why save me? Why?"_

Jack carded a distracted hand through his hair. "I dunno. I really don't. It just feels . . . wrong, this way. I'd rather freeze your butt in a fair fight than like this."

The young Guardian could tell Pitch wasn't pleased with the quasi-answer, but the essence subdued nonetheless, retreating. It was only then Jack realized his head felt lighter, like there was less there. This was happening. Really, really happening. Like the cheshire cat, Pitch was digesting himself into non-existence. Before Jack could wonder more about it, the eerie, unforgettable wail of a fearling pierced the cave.

"Oh, what now," he said. He found the Nightmare waiting for him outside. It stood in the shade of a maple tree twenty feet away. It was weird seeing it in the broad daylight, standing as a normal horse would despite its draconian form. Without the cover of night it seemed diminished, smaller than what it really was. Its coat was matte black, the sun casting no reflections. It stared at Jack with orange eyes as if his very presence affronted it, ears pinning back and lips lifting from sharp, ringed teeth. It took two steps forward but hesitated when Jack lifted his staff.

"I think it's following you," Jack said to Pitch. "Stop being afraid."

But Pitch stank with the fear of his own fading.

"Relax, Sunshine. I won't let it get you."

_"You know what it can do!"_

"Yeah, well, it has no idea what I can do," Jack replied, widening his stance. The draconian horse lifted its head, ears perked high, as if waiting for an invisible signal. The winter spirit tightened his grip on his staff, preparing to attack. Despite Pitch's diminished control, Jack's magic still nipped and bit at his fingertips. But the Nightmare didn't know that. It knew with a cold hatred what the staff had done to its brethren, and what it could still do. So when Jack advanced, shouting insults and brandishing his staff, it relented, giving ground with stiff dignity. But as much as Jack tried, it wouldn't outright leave. After twenty minutes, the young Guardian realized it wasn't going anywhere.

"Well, if it tries anything, I'll freeze its ugly face," Jack said, panting in the hot sun. He felt he was melting. At thirty feet, the fearling's silent vigil was eerie. "Seriously? Is there nothing you can do?"

_"I'm dying, Frost. Sorry I'm not at my calmest!" _

"Yeah, but, you're not dying now. I mean, you are, but you still have a few days left. Worry then."

A sharp snarl was Jack's only answer.

Shrugging, Jack went back to the cave. The fading was still creeping inward; half the arm was transparent now. The body's head was yet untouched, the slack face a stark contrast to the essence in his head, which hadn't stopped twitching and pacing in Jack's mind since his return from the Pole. The young Guardian was surprised he hadn't worn a track yet. _You should try to relax, _Jack thought. _You'll burn yourself out if you don't. _But Pitch stoutly ignored him. It wasn't long, of course, before Jack felt the phantom footsteps fade, along with the Nightmare King's presence. Jack tried not to care, but couldn't help but ask.

"Pitch?"

_"Just leave me alone." _The voice was faint, drowsy.

Jack didn't worry. He wasn't worrying. Not worrying. Why should he? The Boogeyman was right: if he survived the ordeal and returned to his body, he would be back to his old tricks before any of them could blink. He was cruel and malicious and every action aimed to hurt; he would attempt to finish the Guardians off time without number. What little good remained had long been twisted and warped beyond recognition. Was there any affection left in that cold heart? Had there been any love to begin with? What would Jack be saving in the end? A future enemy? Their biggest regret? _I'm not worrying about this, I'm not, _he told himself. He was doing this to ease his conscience. They were Guardians, not murders. If Pitch had any thoughts or emotions on the matter, Jack hardly felt them. Only if he concentrated could he sense _something _was nestled behind his eyes, something cold and dark and growing smaller by the hour.

When Jack re-emerged from the cave, the fearling was still around, standing beneath the maple tree as if tied there. It quickly retreated to a safe distance when the young Guardian started insulting its face, its mother, and its mother's mother, but still didn't leave. Jack didn't like it. Its patient, lidless stare bore into him like fishhooks, raising the hairs on his neck.

"Creepy," he muttered under his breath.

Enough was enough. Jack donned his eye-patch and piggybacked on a passing wind all the way to Jamie's house. It was weird losing his depth-perception. When he finally released his ride, he tried to land on the picket fence, overshot, and missed. He tumbled into the bushes with a sharp _whoa! _He popped back up, brushing wayward leaves and twigs off his person with hasty hands, but soon found it didn't matter: Jamie and his gang were entrenched in a rousing game of backyard soccer, too preoccupied to see. Two goal posts composed of cardboard, several rakes, and battered traffic cone stood on opposite sides of the the backyard. Jamie's team had their back to the busy street, cars breezing by as the children played. They didn't notice Jack's approach—the tiniest _this time, this time they won't see—_shot up his spine, but then Jamie waved him over. The kids accepted the spirit's presence as easily as slipping on their shoes, not even questioning the impossibility of a creature like Jack. _Belief, _a child's strongest weapon. The young Guardian released the pent-up sigh and joined them.

"Trying out as a pirate, Jack?" Monty said. The front of his shirt was streaked with grass stains. His hair was soaked with sweat.

"Yeah, what's up with the get-up?"

Only Jamie looked on with a knowing, secret gaze, and didn't ask about the eye-patch.

"Oh, y'know, switching things up a bit," Jack said airily. "So. Who's team am I on?"

The resulting uproar caused a time out and a subsequent rule-change, but soon Jack was playing soccer with the rest of them, switching teams every five minutes. He wasn't allowed to use his magic—he hadn't planned on using it anyway—but the new loss of his depth perception added a challenge he hadn't thought about before. So when the ball shot past him and into the street, he almost didn't notice Jamie running after it. He wouldn't have thought anything of it, except instead of pausing on the sidewalk until the road was clear, Jamie continued jogging without looking either way. Jack's stomach plunged and for one terrible, horrible moment, he knew the boy would get hit. He launched himself at the kid, shouting _Jamie, no! _

Jamie's startled pause gave Jack enough time to whisk him out of a car's path. The car was still blaring its horn as it drove past.

Jack hugged the boy tightly to his chest for a moment, willing himself to believe Jamie was safe. Then he held his friend out at arm's length and crouched before him.

"Jamie! Why did you do that?"

"I dunno," the boy said, blinking. He looked around as if waking up from a dream.

"You could've been hit! Why did you cross the road like that?"

The lost look was slowly fading from Jamie's eyes, but far too slowly for Jack's taste. "I dunno," he said again. "I—I didn't think."

Pitch's voice slithered in his ear. It was the wispiest Jack had ever heard it._"It's happening. Fear is fading from the children."_

"That's a good thing, right?" Jack asked, but even as the words left his mouth, a terrible sense of dread stole over him.

"What?" Jamie asked.

"Oh, uh, just talking to myself. Listen, kiddo, you have to be careful. You could get really hurt if you run into the road like that."

By now the others had jogged over, peering at the scene curiously. Jack stood up, still tall enough to tower all of them, even Cupcake. None of their expressions held concern over Jamie's safety, or relief he was still alright. Just bright, curious faces stared back at him, devoid of the tiniest spark that would've put Jack's heart at ease. Instead, the dread grew.

"Promise me none of you will run into the road," Jack said. He couldn't believe he was saying this at their age.

"Sure, no problem," they chorused back, but the young Guardian still insisted they re-arrange the goal posts so the street was no longer such a pressing danger. To make matters worse, Jack noticed the fearling had followed him. It wasn't foolish. It remained on the other side of the road, giving the playing children a wide berth, as if it knew just being near them would invoke the young Guardian's wrath. Not that it noticed them, anyway. Its lidless gaze remained locked on Jack, boring into him. He startled a little as laughter exploded behind him. The gang had resumed playing, Clyde and Caleb locked in a fancy-foot battle for the ball, utterly unaware of the fearling's presence. Any other time Jack would've jumped right in the thick of things, but now he couldn't help but stare at the little strangers, confused and alarmed. He kept to the sidelines, balancing on the picket fence. He couldn't risk another close call; when they went inside for supper, Jack squirreled himself in a nearby tree to maintain his vigil. If any of them got hurt on his watch, he would never forgive himself.

His hackles rose as a low, slow chuckle entered his mind. "What's so funny?"

_"It's just so perfect."_

"Perfect? A car almost hit Jamie!"

_"Exactly."_

Jack's hackles shot up.

In a moment of self-preservation in the wake of Jack's dangerous anger, the Nightmare King stumbled to add, _"Now my value is apparent. Don't you see? Now you'll all learn the value of fear."_

"I know the value of fear," Jack began hotly.

_"No, you didn't. Not you or the Guardians."_

Before Jack could say "I'm a Guardian too, remember?" the dark creature continued, _"We both know you're not like the others. If I was stuck in that furball's head or the feathery tart's, they wouldn't've lifted a finger to help me. But not you. You're different—you're like me."_

"Oh, joy. Look, I thought we wouldn't have this 'cold and dark' talk again."

_"We're not," _Pitch snapped. _"You're not listening."_

Jack gritted his teeth. He was still bristling and snarly from the Boogeyman's reaction to Jamie's close call, and was in a less-than charitable mood. Being the good guy was proving harder than he thought; suddenly he empathized with Bunnymund's and Tooth's apathy. What if they had their own human friends during the Dark Ages? And what if Pitch had done something horrible to them? What, exactly, did the Nightmare King do that was so terrible in 1348?

_"Oh, don't start that," _Pitch said, though his nervousness leaked through like lightening flashes. _"My business with the Four are mine and theirs. Old history. Water under the bridge."_

"Sure," Jack said in a dark tone to rival one of Pitch's own.

_ "You understand now why you need me. That little demonstration proved that."_

"I just saw Jamie forgetting to look both ways on a busy street," Jack replied coolly.

_"Nooooo, you saw a child without fear. Do you know what a child without fear is? Reckless. A reckless child is a stupid child. A stupid child is a dead child. Am I making it easy for you?"_

"I don't think the kid's the only one being stupid here," Jack growled. He clung to his anger, because anger was pure: it made his stance on Save-the-Boogeyman campaign an easy one. But try as he would, he couldn't help but see the logic. The flight or fight response was a valuable teacher, and those without easily misstepped. The essence in his head coiled on itself, folding like an impossible Möbius strip.

_"You know I'm right."_

"Shut up. I can do without your gloating."

_"It's more than just that," _Pitch said. _"I bet you didn't realize without fear, there'd be no courage, either."_

"Courage is conquering fear yet still being afraid," Jack said lowly, as if to himself. Gods, did agreeing with the Boogeyman taste this bad all the time? He changed tactics. "That still doesn't change the fact you purposely went after Jamie and his friends. After we defeated you."

_"Yes. Well. Could you blame me?"_

"No more," Jack said. His voice was iron. He leaned forward, pinning the squirming essence an inward glare Bunnymund would've been proud of. "If I go through with the plan and save you, you have to promise no more vendettas. No more revenge. You can do what you want with us Guardians, but you stay far away from Jamie and his friends. Promise, or I go to the Pole now and stay there until you fade to nothing. Lie, and I'll know."

Pitch froze. Emotions, too many to count and too tangled to single out, flashed by. With the diminished presence was even harder now to discern what the other was feeling, but Jack didn't care about those.

_"But you can't do that. You need my fear in the world: you saw what nearly happened to your precious Jamie."_

"I don't care. I'll watch him every second if I have to keep him safe, but if you don't give me your word, I'm letting you die."

_"But—you can't—you won't—" _

"Your choice."

Pitch fell silent, though in his silence Jack could sense him churning, alien thoughts flickering by like fish dreams, metallic and cold. The young Guardian strained to listen for the velvet notes of deceit, the oily texture he'd come to associate with falsehood. That, at lease, he could discern. He could dimly sense the Boogeyman pawing at his mind as a dog would a door to escape the rain, attempting to find a loophole, a glitch in his sincerity. Jack knew Pitch wouldn't find one. After being so utterly entwined for the past three days, they knew there could be no deception. At last, grudgingly, mulish, the Boogeyman said:

_"Fine. I give you my word."_

"Go back on your word," Jack said, "hurt Jamie in anyway . . . I promise you'll wish you _had_ faded."

_"I get it, I get it," _Pitch snapped, his voice thinning. _"Touch a hair on his head, yes, yes. Now who's the one who needs to stop with the dramatizations." _

"Just wanted to make sure," the immortal teenager said, settling back on his haunches. He felt a great weight roll off his chest, a restlessness he hadn't noticed stilling behind his ribs. The sounding clarity gave the whole business order, and as Jack crouched in the tree by Jamie's house, he found he was at peace. He was in the horse chestnut tree all over again, back when he and the Nightmare King had come to their first understanding. Jamie and friends wouldn't be hurt by Pitch's again. Pitch, in turn, would be allowed to continue teaching the importance of caution to children, after his own harsh fashion. As for Jack himself, he was glad he resolved the temptations for murder.

He was still thinking such thoughts when he saw the fearling out of a corner of his eye. He turned his head. No. There were two now. They stood side-by-side in silence, identically draconian and fierce, their visages locked unwavering on Jack's own. They made no attempt to attack, but Jack still shifted uneasily. He stood up on the branch, loosening his grip on his staff in a fighter's hold.

"Pitch? Care to explain?" he asked, but could the cold essence in his head didn't rouse. The Boogeyman had slipped into unconsciousness, nestled in oblivion, cold and dark and growing smaller by the hour.

…

_TBC_


	7. vii

**A.N: **Thank you everyone for your kind words of encouragement! Hope you've enjoyed the story as much as I had writing it. Til the next adventure!

.

"Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past."

–Willa Cather_, My Ántonia _

.s.

"Pitch, wake up. C'mon."

Jack could hardly sense the faint stirrings now. Saturday had come and gone without incident, and Sunday arrived leaden with an oppressive weight. There was a heaviness to the air, an expectancy, that told the winter spirit today was the day. It even smelled heavy, swollen with the violent promise of rain. Grasshoppers screamed. By early afternoon the sky was almost grey with it, slate-blue and ugly, and towards the west a gigantic wall of cloud was massing. Jack found himself pacing outside the little cave. It couldn't've happened sooner: steadily, remorselessly, Pitch's deterioration had taken a turn for the worse. If the dark essence had been a bowling ball before, it was a smoke ring now. The dark spirit was less of a form and more of a suggestion; Jack walked around as if balancing a jug of water on his crown, afraid the slightest wind would puff him out.

"Wakey-wakey, Sunshine."

The presence stirred. _"I said don't call me that."_

The connection between them, so visceral and painful before, was nearly at its end. Jack couldn't sense the other's emotions; even Pitch's voice was as remote and distant as marble. Jack found himself straining for some clue, some hidden truth between them he could use. But there was none. Like an animal sensing its own death, Pitch was closing himself off as neatly as closing a door; the young Guardian's knocks rang without answer.

"Just hold on for a little longer."

There was no answer, either verbal or emotive. The ancient being, possibly older than the Moon, had been stripped to almost nothing. All what remained was the core of Pitch's essence, a thing so agèd, so foreign, Jack had no guide for interaction. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, looking about. He stood in the clearing beyond the caves, in nearly the exact spot he'd woken up after the lightening strike. The sea of grass swayed and rustled all around him. The devil's paintbrushes bobbed and righted, their bright orange petals catching the sun. Jack's face tightened. He looked over his shoulder at the growing herd of Nightmares standing a distance away. They stilled, as if sensing his gaze. There were seven now, massing in number with alarming regularity. They had yet to attack, but Jack could see a restlessness had started to affect them; they sidled and shied against each other, baring teeth and flattening ears. Only when he stared did they stop, glaring. What were they waiting for? Pitch?

_ "So. This is death." _

"You're not dead yet," Jack said.

The Boogeyman continued as if he didn't hear, voice faint and raspy. _"There's less pain than I'd imagined."_

"Stop it. You're not going to die."

The Nightmare King looked at Jack. It was like having a cat stare at him. The regard held nothing recognizable, and as Pitch gazed at him, Jack couldn't tell if the other was contemptuous, angered, bewildered, or just appraising. There was nothing. It was like a wind; though it was unseen, Jack could feel it, like a coolness on his cheek. Then it was gone; like a sinking ship, the dark spirit submerged into unconsciousness, as if the mere act of noticing Jack had exhausted all his strength. The intervals between consciousness and unconsciousness had been widening, and now the immortal teenager knew it'd be some time before Pitch roused again.

"C'mon, c'mon, rain already," Jack said under his breath, staring up into the westward clouds. The humidity made them hazy, indistinct. Only the uppermost reaches were perfectly white, as if rimmed with salt.

It wasn't long before the others came. Bunnymund appeared first, popping out of his tunnel. He took one look at Jack's face and offered a frown of his own.

"Trust me, mate, this might be a favor," he said, but Jack knew that wasn't true. A world without fear was a folly, but the desire to explain it to Bunnymund seemed too exhausting a task. The time for talk was over. Jack continued to pace as the other Guardians arrived, picking at the whorls in his staff with restless fingers. With their help he pulled what was left of Pitch's body out in the open. It was nearly transparent. Only the centre of the body still had dimension, and North handled it as he would delicate lace.

"How's my eye?" Jack asked Tooth when she neared.

Her beautiful gaze flickered over his, lashes dipping. "Very blue," she said after a moment. "Barely any gold left."

Instead of relief, his dread deepened. "How should we do it?" he asked North, nodding to the fading body in his large hands.

"Put him in sleigh," North replied. "Keep him at back. You stay with him, and no matter what, don't let go. We'll drive you directly into the storm if we have to."

Tooth came and put a comradely hand on the winter spirit's shoulder. "I'm not doing this for Pitch," she said. "I'm doing it for you."

Jack's roiling nerves made it hard for him to smile, but he could tell she saw his gratitude. "Thanks, Tooth."

The Big Five had little time to speak further; the towering thunderclouds had arrived.

Dense and impenetrable as a fortress, Jack had to crane his head back just to spy the edges. Everyone held their breath, unable to help watch as the storm's violence unleashed. When it finally reached them, the sunlight disappeared as suddenly as a flipped switch; within seconds the world was in shadow. The wind picked up. The sky took on a yellow tinge, and when the first drops fell, they reeked of ozone. The rain battered against their faces like hail, stinging. Dimly, Jack wondered if Jamie and his friends were doing the same thing, eyes riveted to the sky, morbidly curious. The trees began to bend like reeds under the force of the gusts. When the first rumbles of thunder rolled through the air, both dread and anticipation warred within Jack. The feeling only grew worse as the thunder soon crashed over them like rocks in a landslide. Lightening, when it came, lit up the world like a camera's flash. Seconds later a _BOOM _rattled his bones. He felt it in his chest, the air so staticky it made his teeth hurt.

"Let's go!" North said, shouting to be heard. Jack quickly clambered up the sleigh's seats, crouching by Pitch's fading body. Bunnymund and Sandy were swift to follow, Tooth already besides North. The reindeer bellowed and kicked into the air, swimming towards the heart of the storm. Jack slitted his eyes again the wind and rain, gritting his teeth as he soon became soaked. He felt he was in the middle of a river, deafened on all sides. He could see Bunnymund's mouth moving, but couldn't hear the words. The giant rabbit began to gesticulate, pointing at something behind him. Jack turned. It was the herd of fearlings, galloping alongside the sleigh, mouths wide, as if screaming. A soaking, furry body pressed against Jack as the rabbit pulled back an arm to unleash his boomerang. Without thinking, Jack reached up to stop him.

"No, stop! Maybe they can help!"

"Help? Have you lost your mind?" Bunnymund hollered back.

"I dunno! Just—just don't chase them away."

"Fine! But if they go after me, I'm introducing them to my boomerangs!"

The rabbit returned to his side of the sleigh, leaving Jack to watch their draconian forms never approach, but never leave, either. There were ten of them now, necks straining as they bobbed and weaved. Hope surged within him. Could this mean Pitch was still alive? Was there still enough of him to attract the Nightmares? As if sensing his thoughts, the faint voice said,

_"Don't."_

Jack sat upright. "Pitch?"

It was hard to hear the words. It was a miracle he could make them out at all._"So tired."_

"Hey! Stay with me!"

Jack went to slap Pitch, but his hand passed through. All what physically remained of Pitch's body was a bare thread in the chest, the rest nothing but a ghostly outline. He looked up to see Sandy and Bunnymund regarding at him. Under a golden umbrella, the Sandman's face was sympathetic, more sympathetic than Jack had yet seen. In that instant Jack didn't want sympathy. He just wanted everything back to normal.

_"No use," _Pitch said._"Body. Nothing left."_

"Just hang in there!" Louder, directed up front, Jack shouted, "What's the holdup? Where's the lightening?"

Just as he spoke, a huge bolt flashed in front of the sleigh, illuminating every plane. Bunnymund's fur stuck out like a monstrous pincushion, Tooth's feathers faring no better. The reindeer shied, veering so hard Jack was nearly thrown overboard. When he righted himself, blinking rain from his eyes, he saw Pitch's body was gone. Jack stared, unbelieving, as something went cold deep in his chest. Movement in his peripheral turned his head; it was the fearling herd, each swerving off to nosedive after something. There was no thought: Jack dove after them, not hearing Bunnymund's cry. He fell with the rain, plastering his arms to his sides. He pushed himself to greater speeds, gaining on the spiraling Nightmares. Their squeals took on a furious edge when they noticed him, but a well-aimed blast of ice scattered them like flies. Jack had little time to relish his control over his powers as he saw Pitch's body in free fall, nothing more than a suggestion.

"C'mon, Pitch, don't fail on me now!" Jack shouted, not daring to look away for fear of losing sight of it.

Perhaps it was his imagination. As he fell, reaching for Pitch's body, he thought he heard, _"Oh!" _

Jack stretched. His hand grasped nothing. The body was utterly without matter, and when the lightening struck, Jack knew oblivion.

.

.s.

.

Jack's reawakening was like a jolt from a cattle-prod, complete with gasp and upright spring. He instantly curled over, hissing in pain. As he soon found out, getting struck by over two billion volts of electricity twice in less than a week wasn't without its price. Hands were quick to soothe him. It took several moments before the cramps subsided. The young Guardian wobbled upright, slower this time, but no less urgent.

"Dizzit, didzit work?"

"Jack . . ."

"Tell me!"

North laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Jack. We were too late."

But Jack didn't want to hear it. He'd been so sure it would work, so convinced the Boogeyman wouldn't die. It was ludicrous to think such a powerful creature would be brought so low by an accident. He looked around. It was early morning, the sky above a faint gold. The eerie sense of déjà vu swept through him as he took in the dew-covered grass, the coolness, the soft drone of insects. The herd of Nightmares was gone. At first he thought he wasn't looking hard enough, but it was soon apparent they had all disappeared. The young Guardian placed a hand on his forehead, blinking.

"No." Shaking his head was like sloshing around a hornet's nest. But it was empty. There was no coldness, no immovable weight, no snide commentary. His head was his own, fully.

_Pitch? _he thought, experimenting. No response. Not even a ripple.

"I'm sorry, Jack," Tooth said.

"Yeah, I'm sorry too." Jack's voice sounded hollow to his ears. Blaming his friends never crossed his mind. It wasn't their fault Pitch had faded away; if anything, it was commendable what they've accomplished despite their hostility towards the dark creature. A sense of futility gnawed at him like a dog at a bone. "Was it always meant to happen?" he asked. He thought back to the conversation he had had with Pitch, a muscle working in his jaw.

_Everything you've said is true. If I could rid you lot forever, I would. I won't stop. Then why continue this charade? Why save me?_

"Maybe the act of kindness would be enough to break the cycle of violence," Tooth said. Unlike Bunnymund, she didn't outwardly express any relief at the Boogeyman's passing. "Maybe if he were offered a Guardianship—"

"No. No, he'll never—I mean, would never—accept that," Jack said. He cleared his throat. "It's weird. He envied and despised kids. But he would've liked to be seen. I think that's all he's ever wanted."

Bunnymund snorted, flicking dew from his whiskers. "As if. And how'd you get so chummy with that mangy dingo, anyway?"

"Trapped inside my head for five days, remember? We couldn't help but learn about each other." Jack could see it all so clearly now. Maybe not the individual emotions at the time, but like indirectly staring at stars, he saw Pitch, lonely and resentful, had grown to despise humans, children especially. His hostility was the same as the trapped animal's, escaping the pain of exile by gnawing away a part of himself. Yet there was always a pull that kept the Boogeyman attracted to kids; it was the same pull that kept him after Jack, kept offering the Antarctica deal. Jack wasn't stupid: he was a Guardian now, and had to protect the mortal world from another Dark Age, but now he understood the core of the Nightmare King. All he'd ever wanted was his throne returned.

"Should we share words?" North asked, drawing Jack from his thoughts.

Unlike the beautiful and heartfelt monument for Sandy, the Big Five looked at each other, shifting their weight in the dewy grass. No one wanted to meet the other's eyes.

"Well, I've got nothing nice to say, other than good riddance," Bunnymund said. "He's done things no one should be forgiven for."

Several images floated over Sandy's head in quick session, merging into each other. Jack wondered if the Sandman had forgiven Pitch for killing him last year, and as he searched his friend's face, he found no enmity.

"Jack?" the Guardian of Wonder said, gently prodding. "You knew him best, in the end."

Did he? Jack frowned. The Boogeyman was a being in many ways larger than himself; to say Jack 'knew' him was laughable. But over the course of the five days he'd developed a greater understanding, broadened his vocabulary in the Nightmare King's language.

"Pitch was—" Pitch Black was a contradiction. He wanted to be seen but hated children. He longed for a family, but rejected companionship. Jack licked his lips. "Pitch was complicated."

When it was clear Jack would say no more, Bunnymund threw his head back and laughed. "That's it? That's all you're gonna say?"

"That's all I need to say," the youngest Guardian said, and something in his tone, or something lacking, sobered the giant rabbit.

"Yeesh, you sure know how to kill a mood," he grumbled.

North _tsk_'d reprovingly. "Bunny, some respect, please."

"No, no, it's fine," Jack said quickly, moving between them. "It's fine, all good; it's my head's being weird with everything. I, uh, think I need to be alone for awhile."

Tooth frowned. "You sure, Jack?"

"Yeah. Just need to get used to my own noggin, I think," he said with a little laugh. It sounded strained to his ears, but if the others heard it, they didn't mention it. As before, Sandy was the one to level Jack a long, thoughtful gaze, but like before, allowed the winter spirit to flee. Jack was supremely grateful as his friends began to leave for their own realms; just as before, the threat had been neutralized, therefore so was their collaboration. The mortal world was safe. _Except there was a casualty this time, _Jack thought, his lips thinning as no inner voice answered with a caustic reply. He knew he had his work cut out for him. Keeping an eye on Jamie and his friends, now that fear was gone, would be a full-time job.

He was shaken from his thoughts again when something cold was pressed into his hands. Jack looked up, startled.

"Here," North said, voice gentle. "I want you to keep it."

Jack looked down. It was the snow globe.

"In case you need to talk. Or company. And who knows? The Yetis could use a bit more mischief in their lives."

Jack offered a lopsided smile despite the tightness in his chest. "Thanks."

The smile faded when the Leader of the Guardians climbed aboard his sleigh and coaxed the reindeer into the air. Jack watched the swimming movements grow smaller and smaller, until they disappeared completely in a white blaze of colour. With a grunt he swung his staff up and rested it against his shoulder. He held up a fist and made a snowball. Every flake was as soft as eiderdown, almost blue in the early morning light. _It's over, _he thought, but there was no triumph. The same strange emptiness followed him as he made his slow way towards the cavern that had been both prison and refuge for the past week, taking care not to hit his head as he ducked inside the dimness. There was no sign of them having been there, no hint of the struggle between the two opposing forces. As Jack took one last, long look, he decided never to set foot in it again. He touched the ground, feeling the cold through his fingertips. When he withdrew them, inexplicable regret marred what should've been joy.

.

.s.

.

The faster Jack distanced himself from the whole ordeal, the better. He didn't know how long long he'd have before kids everywhere ran into roads or double-dog dared each other into dizzying acts of stupidity. But first, there were loose ends he need to take care of.

"So . . . Pitch was stuck in your head the whole time?" Jamie said, squinting up at Jack from his clay rendition of Bigfoot. The sun beat down on the plastic wrap forming the protective barrier for the clay, but it was a bright heat, not a deadly oppressive one. A breeze came and went, cooling their brows. When Jamie reached across to wipe the sweaty hair from his eyes, a streak of clay remained.

"Yeah," Jack said. He moved to mimic the boy's cross legged posture, settling on the mowed grass.

"How was that?"

"A nightmare." They both laugh at the cheesiness, the sounds of their laughter mingling in the late July morning. August was right around the corner; already Jack could sense the cooling of the air as the earth slowly positioned on its axis. Soon the leaves would turn their colours, and winter would once again settle in the quiet town of Burgess. _It never ends, _Jack thought. _The cycle of everything. _His mouth twitched downward. Well, almost everything.

"Seriously, though," the boy said, after their mirth trickled away. "Was it terrible?"

Jack picked up a discarded piece of clay and rolled it between his fingers, feeling the grit and sand. "Most of it was," he said after a moment. He flicked his gaze toward Jamie, scrutinizing him for the tenth time for any sign of the strange, reckless stranger he met two days ago. For whatever the reason, Jamie's regard was as bright and clear as before. "He was really old and angry. But sometimes . . . sometimes he was okay."

Jamie _hm_'d. He scored his clay and applied some slip before adhering one of Bigfoot's arms on the body. "I kinda figured something was up when I saw your eye," he said. He shuddered a little. "I met him only once, that was was enough. You don't forget something like that. Where's he now?"

"Now?" Jack echoed. He looked down, pinching the clay until it smooshed apart. "I dunno."

.

.s.

.

Jack stayed with Jamie for the rest of the day, waiting for the strange boy to emerge. To his mingled relief and suspicion, his friend was the same kid he'd known since day one, and not once did he give the impression of recklessness. When Jamie was finally called in for supper, Jack left the Bennett household confused. He didn't feel like wandering far, in case it was all an act, or a fluke. The youngest Guardian kept in the backyard, swishing his staff and turning the birdbath into a miniature skating rink. Crickets chirruped in a soft concerto. The sky above was turning salmon pink, complete with scaly purple clouds. The sunset in the west tinged the horizon a deep orange, inversely turning the surrounding trees into black silhouettes. At this point the shadows were so pervasive Jack almost missed the flicker in his peripheral; as it was, he hardly turned his head. It was only the faint prickle of his neck hairs that warned him he was no longer alone, and when he turned, he didn't believe his eyes.

"Pitch?"

The Boogeyman took a step forward, gliding on apparent nothingness. There was something beautiful and violent in the way he moved, a creature in all ways larger than Jack. The winter spirit backed up before realizing he was, both hands on his staff. Pitch stopped, leveling him a long, indescribable look, expression hidden. It was as if the ordeal had never happened: not a single black hair was out of place, not a speck unchanged. The metallic eyes glistened like greasy coins the late evening dimness, digging into Jack like fishhooks.

"I thought you—we all thought you didn't make it," Jack said, if only to break the discomforting silence.

"Evidently not."

Pitch took another step, footfalls soundless. The young Guardian didn't retreat, remaining where he was as the dark spirit slowly closed the gap between them. At last Pitch stopped six feet away, face still inscrutable. Jack tried not to let his own emotions show, willing his face to resemble the Nightmare King's cool one. The moment was lost when the Boogeyman blinked as if waking and broke eye contact. He lifted his hands before his face, turning them. "I'm taller than I remember," he muttered. He curled them into fists and relaxed them by his sides.

When Jack spoke, he was glad at how steady his voice sounded. "How'd you do it? We all saw you disappear."

For a moment Jack was convinced Pitch wouldn't respond. There was something off about him, something not quite there; the Boogeyman stood as if his mind was miles away, staring through Jack as if he was transparent. So when the dark spirit spoke, the other thought he misheard.

"I understood, then. Hard to believe it took me this long."

"Understood what?"

Pitch regarded Jack sharply, eyes narrowing. He searched the pale face for a moment before saying, albeit grudgingly: "When I was too afraid to die, I couldn't enter my body. It was when I finally let go was I able to." He looked away, jaw clenching. "A second later and I would've faded entirely."

Jack thought he could hear the bones creaking under the tension when Pitch made a fist again. "It's always supposed that way, wasn't it?" Pitch said, voice low and vicious and aimed inward. He bared his uneven teeth in a snarl. "Am I forever meant to be conquered?"

Jack kept himself very still, not wanting to provoke a potentially unstable monster. Well, more unstable than normal. Even though they'd sent five days undeniably tethered to each other, in no way did it make them friends. As he waited, his eyes flicked over possible escape venues. Jack knew he was already at a disadvantage; night was falling fast now, and soon Pitch would be able to move through the darkness with an assassin's efficiency. There'd be no stopping an attack, and Jack wasn't sure how he'd fare against the Nightmare King so close to Jamie's house. As if they still shared a mental connection, Pitch's gaze twitched over Jack's shoulder to land on Jamie's room.

"Don't," Jack said in quiet warning.

Pitch curled his upper lip in faint contempt as he regarded Jack again. "I wasn't planning on it. I'll keep my word." Again that strange, strangled pause. "As you did."

Jack blinked. "What?"

The cutting, angry look returned. "Don't make it spell it out for you, Frost. You know exactly what I mean."

Slowly, faintly, Jack felt himself relaxing. He straightened from his fighting crouch and leaned against his staff. "You're trying to say 'thank you,' aren't you," he said, struggling to hide his spreading grin. Pitch's swift, furious glare quickly quelled the urge.

"Yes." Pulling all his teeth by the roots would've caused the Boogeyman less pain than the admission. "I am."

Jack could've milked the situation for several minutes more—his inner desire for chaos screamed for it—but he knew provoking a wounded monster would mean more pain for him in the future than he dared consider. He coughed, trying to find safer ground.

"What bout those Nightmares?" he asked. "Why were they there?"

The other's expression was similar to swallowing a lemon. "They were drawn to my fear, but repelled by your lack of it. Again, it seems as if I have you to thank."

Pitch spat the last word like a curse, frustration and resentment brimming over every syllable. Jack's stance widened again, toes curling in the grass in case he had to dodge a blow. More and more the fogginess was leaving the Boogeyman's mien, making Jack wonder how much longer the fragile truce between them would last. Like the Nightmares, Pitch seemed caught between two opposing urges, torn between attacking and gratitude. Then again, when was the last time the Boogeyman had to thank another creature? And to an enemy, too?

"Listen, Pitch, I don't want any trouble," Jack began, but the ancient creature cut him off with a growl.

In an almost violent gesture, Pitch stuck out his hand. It took an embarrassingly long moment before Jack realized what the other was asking. His eyebrows shot into his hairline as he stared at Pitch in open astonishment. If possible, the Boogeyman's scowl deepened. But the hand stayed. Jack chewed on his inner cheek, remembering the last time Pitch had reached out to him in a similar manner. _He took my staff and double crossed me, _he thought, remembering the desolate ice floes. Even then they never made physical contact; Pitch had just taken the staff and that was that. What Pitch was asking now. . . . Surprised at the sudden flush of anger, Jack glared at the gray face, hating what it made him remember. Antarctica. It always came back to Antarctica. But the inexorable hand remained like a brand, unmoving. A muscle twitched in the lean jaw as Pitch's expression steadily darkened. He leaned forward a little, bowing just the slightest.

Jack's own jaw clenched. Then he took the Boogeyman's hand.

Pitch's skin was a surprise. It was cool, cooler than Jack would've guessed. The grasp was strong and narrow, and as it clamped around his own like a vice, warning bells sang. It was all clear: Pitch would pull him close and stab him as he stabbed Sandy, and the second war against the Guardians would begin. Never again would the Nightmare King have such a chance to end his greatest threat as he did now. But as Jack waited for the betrayal, waited for the excuse to whip his staff in defense, the grip never tightened. The betrayal never came. They shook hands once, twice, then the moment was done. They released, parting ways like two opponents in a ring.

The strange bottled tension seemed to bleed from Pitch's frame as he straightened. Jack waited for the snide comment sure to come, still too tense to relax, but there was none. Then, like that, the Boogeyman bled away, disappearing into the dark. The winter spirit strained his ears and eyes, but it was no use: night had fully fallen now, and Jack would have to wait for morning to look for him.

.

.

.

_-fin-_


End file.
